Before we left London a Spanish friend had strongly advised us to travel second-class in Balearic Island steamers. He said the second saloon accommodation was justly popular with those who knew, because, first-class passengers being few, it was better placed and more commodious.
The Man has cherished a lifelong theory that when journeying by sea the best accommodation is not too good. But on this occasion of our crossing from Majorca to Minorca, as the weather was still tranquil, he allowed himself to be persuaded to put our friend's advice to the test. And the experience of that night was so eminently satisfactory that it not only added to our immediate comfort but saved us much money in the future.
When crossing from Barcelona our first-class cabins, which were small and had thwart-ship berths, had been situated in the stern. The second-class cabin on the Monte Toro, which I shared with the only other lady passenger, was large, airy, and as gay as ivory paint, brass rods, and scarlet draperies could make it. It was right amidships too, had two port-holes, and berths that for comfort could scarcely have been improved upon.
The lighter with a load of pigs being still on the way, the decks of the smart little steamer were quiet. A pet donkey, covered with a scarlet blanket, was tethered under the sheltering boat deck; a glint of gold lace in the galley revealed the captain warming himself by the cook's fire.
When I entered the cabin labelled "Señoras," a pretty girl in a pink petticoat was standing before the mirror engaged in exaggerating the bulk of her abundant dark hair by padding it out with quite unnecessary "rats" and cushions into twice its natural proportions.
Lying down, I fell asleep to the lullaby grunting of the pigs that were being hauled on board. When I awoke it was daylight, and a glance through a port-hole showed that we were nearing a flat coast.
The pretty pink petticoat had already gone on deck, and putting on a cloak and hood, I followed to join my people in a sheltered corner of the promenade deck, from where we surveyed the coast that we were approaching with the deliberate rate of speed that characterizes Balearic Island steamers.
The general aspect of Minorca, the flat country, the white houses, the windmills, vividly recalled our first glimpse of Guernsey as we had approached it early one winter morning many years ago.
Ciudadela, which is the oldest city in the island, was the capital in the time of the Moors. It was to the rulers of Ciudadela that King Jaime sent his demand for the submission of Minorca. From our place on deck we could see Cape Pera, the eastern point of Majorca, twenty miles distant, where the young King and his knights kindled the huge bonfires that, by alarming the Moors into the belief that a hostile army lay encamped there ready to invade them, gained him a bloodless subjection. Ciudadela, which was the seat of a bishop in 423, is still the ecclesiastical capital of Minorca, though Mahón has long superseded her in all else.
The sea is rarely smooth on the Minorcan coast. It was within a short distance of Ciudadela that, not many days later, the General Chanzy, bound from Marseilles to Algiers, was wrecked with the loss of every soul on board with the solitary exception of one young man, whose escape was surely the most marvellous on record.