Skirting the town we struck inland along a broad and splendid road, which for the first few miles is comparatively flat and then rises to a kind of table-land in the centre of the island, to fall away again towards the further coast. The plain is thick with olive groves, date palms, fig and almond orchards. Snow-white houses nestle amongst dark clumps of pines—flat-roofed, oriental-looking houses that resemble great cubes of chalk, with an arcade of roundheaded arches opening into a court on the ground floor, and above this a broad, open gallery where the inhabitants can sit during the noonday heat. This windowless form of architecture is a legacy of the Moors, and the Ivizan peasants are said to have preserved the characteristics of their Moorish predecessors to a higher degree than the inhabitants of either of the sister isles have done. The town-dweller or fisherman of Iviza—generally of Spanish extraction—is said to draw a sharp distinction between himself and the peasants of the interior, whom he looks upon as semi-barbarians. Their boats are a subject of great merriment to him, and he makes a point of laughing heartily if he meets a party of country-folk afloat.
“At sea,” says the fisherman, “I have no fear of the peasants—but ashore! they are worse than the Moors!”
With a character for being turbulent, hot-tempered, and ill-educated, the Ivizans present a great contrast to the mild Majorcans. Murders are not infrequent among them, the almost invariable cause being a quarrel over cards or the jealousy of rival suitors.
Poor and proud, the peasants look with scant favour on any member of their community who may have grown rich and who sets up to be a person of consequence on that account. “Heaven preserve us,” says the Ivizan, “from the shoe that has become a boot!” There are no really wealthy families in the island, and outside the capital we saw no good houses. The ground is far less highly cultivated than the Majorcan plains, and Dame Nature asserts herself in a wealth of wild flowers; the fields are red with poppies and blue with grape-hyacinths, and on either side of the road runs a brilliant border composed of pink tufts of allium swaying on slender stalks, pale dandelions, dwarf iris, charlock, red dwarf ranunculus, small yellow cistus and a bright blue borage. As the road rises we drive through undulating slopes where the juniper and various conifers grow. The hillsides are covered with the maritime pine—whence the islands derived their old name of Pine islands—and large open stretches of uncultivated ground, intersected by rough walls of reddish stone, are given up to the great fennel, seen here for the first time, heath, asphodel, pink and white cistus, and many other shrubs.
All this is very unlike a Majorcan landscape, but still more striking are the parties of country folk that we meet upon the road. It is a fête day, and every one is in grande tenue; whole families are coming to the town or walking back to their villages—bouquets of bright colour, purple, blue, yellow, pink, green, and red—quaint figures, such as one dimly remembers having met with in bygone days on nursery plates, and having accepted as truthful representations of that romantic race—the foreign peasant. Here they all were as large as life.
The women wear a dark bodice with long sleeves, over which is folded a shawl with a border of gay-coloured embroidery worked on black silk. The skirt is immensely full, and often accordion-pleated, and it is worn over half a dozen petticoats which distend it to the dimensions of a crinoline, and make the wearer look high waisted and very stout. It is cut short in front, to display six inches of red or pink underskirt ornamented with scrolls of black braid, and on top of all comes a very short bright-coloured apron, which gives the women a three-decker appearance. The hair is worn in a plait down the back and smoothly parted on the forehead, the headkerchief being often embroidered with gay silk flowers. A heavy gold chain is sometimes worn round the neck, and the shoes are of white canvas and resemble Moorish slippers, being turned up in a point at the toe.
The men are hardly less picturesque. Their velveteen trousers of peacock-blue, brown, or purple are cut tight at the knee and spreading at the foot, like those of our costers or sailors. The coat of dark-blue cotton is very short and shaped something like a blouse, being gathered into pleats at the collar and hanging loose and full all round. They wear a white shirt with a vivid pink or blue sash, a broad-brimmed felt hat with ribbons hanging down behind, and their costume is completed by a fringed shawl in red and green plaid which they hang round their neck.
The little girls are precise replicas of their mothers—long skirt, apron, headkerchief and all—so that at a distance it is impossible to say whether it is a party of children or of women coming towards one, and it was often a surprise to see a small matronly figure skip suddenly across a ditch with an agility beyond her apparent years.
