Within this gateway were the tumbled remains of a city that had been encircled by walls constructed of great single blocks of stone—a city so old that all tradition of its builders was lost. We had thought the Roman remains at Alcudia and Pollensa as of surpassing antiquity. Here was evidence of an occupation far older still.
An eminence in the centre of the enclosure revealed the site of the inevitable, and at that date indispensable, watch-tower. From its top, though now lowered by the passing of centuries and overgrown with herbage, we saw through the gaps in the trees beyond how comprehensive a view the watchers had commanded of the surrounding country.
The top of the mound on which we stood had been hollowed out, and Señor Rande remarked that children came up from Artá to dig for treasures.
"Do they find any?" we asked innocently.
Raising his forefinger, the señor shook it before his face in the gesture we had grown to think characteristically Majorcan.
"Nada!" he made laconic reply.
Devil's tomatoes, heavy with golden fruit, and beautiful large-blossomed lavender periwinkle grew in great profusion about the devastated homes of the vanished people. And it seemed a curious coincidence to remember that the last periwinkles I had seen were those growing about the base of the megalithic monuments in Minorca. One wonders what connection this starry-eyed flower could have had with these prehistoric races.
I had received the information that begonias grew wild in Majorca, with the mental reservation natural to a native of a less gracious climate. So it was a pleasant surprise to recognize a leaf or two of their distinctive marled foliage thrust out from between the heaped stones of the ruined Phœnician village.
Our return journey from Artá was not worthy to rank in our memories with our triumphal progress thither. We had a special conveyance, but as Canet was already in Manacor, having driven the diligence that left Artá at three o'clock that morning, he could not act as our charioteer, and his employer, who drove us, set the pace sedately.
The wind was high, dust was more than a possibility, and the box seat held no attractions. So we sat inside and yawned a little as the kilometros crept slowly past.