XXIII
OF FAIR WOMEN AND FINE WEATHER
The first thing that impresses the traveller regarding the inhabitants of Majorca is the prevalence of good-looking young men and of pretty and graceful young women. Legend tells that in long-past days the people of Majorca were induced to make a treaty with the Dey of Algiers, by whose terms they yearly paid him a tribute of a hundred virgins, on condition that he restrained his piratical hordes from molesting the island. One feels that the Dey had an eye for beauty, for in these favoured isles to be handsome seems to be the rule, not the exception.
While young the Majorcan women are charming after a peculiarly feminine fashion. Compared with them French working women of the same class are hard of feature and masculine and ungainly of form. Their features are refined, their complexions clear, their feet slender, their hands small, shapely, and well-cared for. When I mentally compared the condition of their hands with those of the rough toil-hardened hands of the women of the British working classes, I wondered if the substitution of charcoal for coal and of olive oil for grease in cooking could account for their better preservation.
To rise to the admired standard of aristocratic Majorca a man should look as though he had never done a day's work in his life. His hands should be soft, his skin untanned. A youth who had been yachting declared regretfully that on his return to Palma he was so brown that none of the girls would look at him!
To judge from a letter written to the Palma paper, La Almudaina, by a Majorcan on board an Italian liner bound for the Argentine, the delicacy and fine modelling of Majorcan hands would seem to be locally recognized and even gloried in.
"What a misfortune," lamented the Voyager, "that the Italians have feet and hands so large, and fingers so twisted. Oh, hands of my country, with slender fingers and blushing nails, how my eyes feel home-sick to look upon you!"
Women of all classes wear long skirts, which on being daintily held up reveal natty petticoats; and all show a pleasing taste in footgear. Boots are cheap in Majorca, and the servant maid or the work-girl on their Sunday afternoon promenade on the Borne will wear smart shoes of patent leather or high-heeled boots of cream-hued kid.
Nothing more charming or more suitable for everyday wear than the native head-dresses—a mantilla of black lace for the mistress, a rebozillo of white muslin for her maid—could possibly be devised. While for gala occasions, such as a bull-fight, the white lace blossom-bedecked mantilla is positively captivating. And one sincerely regrets that, in Palma at least, the hat is gradually making its way. The ladies who lead Palma fashion wear hats, and where they lead others hasten to follow.