The Museum is open to the townsfolk only on stated days. This did not happen to be one of those days. It was to the fact that we were foreigners that we owed our instant admission. And while the storm raged without, we enjoyed a private view of the many interesting things in the Ateneo, notably the old ware and natural history specimens.
A very fine private collection of marine flora is housed in the Museum, but it is shown only when specially inquired for, and we were unfortunate in calling at a time when the custodian of the keys chanced to be absent.
Among the pictures and drawings was a merciless but irresistibly amusing caricature of what had presumably been the English Governor of the date, riding upon a donkey. The nice young lad who was showing us round blushed a little when he saw us examine it. Though he did not say so, we felt that he would have liked to apologize to us for its intrusion in the show; but our withers were unwrung.
The members of the Ateneo were delightfully cosmopolitan in their interests. Besides the current Spanish papers the snug reading-room showed a comprehensive array of contemporary literature, from the Graphic, the Studio, Review of Reviews, and Harper's Weekly, to French, German, Belgian, Italian, and South American journals.
When we left the Ateneo the hail had ceased; and though the wind was still high, the Man hurried off to see what he could make of his subject, while the Boy and I strolled into the vegetable market.
The big open enclosure in the middle was empty. Round the covered sides women were sitting beside their little heaps of fruit and vegetables. After the prolonged drought from which the island was suffering, it was perhaps only natural that the supply of fresh vegetables should be limited. But with the recollection still vivid in our memory of the mountains of green cabbages that we had seen at Pollensa market, the stock appeared especially meagre.
The cactus, a shrub whose existence is almost independent of moisture, flourishes on the dry rocky soil, and the specimens of its fruit that, prepared in some way, were served at dinner on the previous night, seemed larger and much finer than any we had seen in Majorca. But even at its finest the prickly pear is hardly a thing to pine for.
One thing that struck us as a particularly charming survival of English tastes was the discovery of cut flowers—chiefly little clusters of roses—for sale on several of the stalls. And one woman offered us sturdy pansy roots for planting. Up to this period of our stay in Palma I had never seen either cut flowers or flower-plants offered for sale in the market, though, indeed, we saw them later.
The wind had been steadily increasing. It would have been decidedly more comfortable to pass the afternoon indoors, but we were determined to seek some of the countless prehistoric remains with which Minorca is lavishly sprinkled. And after an unavoidable delay we started. The delay, be it explained, was caused by waiting for the cleaning of the Boy's boots. The service in the Fonda Central had certain limitations. It did not brush boots. The night before, the Boy had put his outside his bedroom door, and had taken them in in the morning untouched. Before lunch he sent them downstairs with special instructions that he wanted them cleaned at once. But when luncheon was over and we were ready to go out there was no sign of the boots.