“... a good view is obtained over the bay to where the pale grey silhouette of the distant lighthouse divides sea and sky.”
(page [125])
Here we were in Iviza, with no possibility of getting away for the next thirty-six hours, when the Isleño would call on her return from Valencia. The weather looked hopeless, but if we were going to allow ourselves to be influenced by it we should in all probability end by seeing nothing at all, and our eight hours’ crossing would have been in vain; our clothes were already so wet that they need not be taken into account; and after considering all these points we decided to sally forth and look about us.
Hardly had we defied the Fates when they relented. The sky became lighter, the clouds began to clear away, and as we left our inn a welcome gleam of sunshine broke out, at sight of which all the ships lying at anchor in the harbour with one accord spread out their wet sails to dry.
At the end of the mole a man was fishing in the shelter of the great breakwater some twenty feet in height, and thinking that from the summit we might obtain a good view of the town we asked him if there was any means of scaling it. Courteously raising his hat, he replied that the señoras would find no other escalera than the broken end of the breakwater itself—a nearly vertical face of stone blocks, each the size of a grand piano—which he immediately proceeded to climb, carrying our camera and tripod in one hand. With his help I also reached the top, from whence a good general view of the town is obtained, as well as over the bay to where the pale-grey silhouette of the distant lighthouse divides sea and sky.
Very picturesque is Iviza, massed high above the harbour—the lower town, chiefly inhabited by fishing folk, separated by a sharply marked line of fortification from the upper town, the old Jevitzah of the Moors. Crowning the highest point stands the fortified cathedral, built almost immediately after the expulsion of the infidels, and adjoining it is the citadel, enclosing within its walls the governor’s residence, and barracks for a hundred men.
To the upper town we presently ascended, escorted by our waiter, who had been sent by our host—mindful, probably, of the postscript to our letter of introduction—to attend us. Inquisitive faces appeared at balconies and doorways as we picked our way through the narrow, muddy streets of the lower town. Purveyors of drinking water were going from house to house with donkey-carts laden with earthenware jars; scores of cats feasted on remnants of fish in the gutter, and the melancholy Ivizan hound roamed his native alleys like some canine shade in search of the happy hunting grounds. Crossing a drawbridge we pass under the fortified gateway built in the reign of Philip II.—“Catholic and most invincible king of Spain and the East and West Indies”—and ascend by a steep cobbled path to the summit of the town. Many of the houses are extremely ancient looking, and have carved lintels and mullions, or the arms of Aragon cut in stone upon their walls. Passing the prison, where a bored official was leaning out of the window and yawning heavily, we entered the courtyard of the citadel—after giving up our camera to the sentry on guard—and sat down on a low bastion carpeted with sweet alyssum to enjoy the panorama around us.