XXV
IVIZA—A FORGOTTEN ISLE
With regard to Iviza, the third in importance of the Balearic Isles, even the usually omniscient Baedeker maintains a dignified reserve. And indeed Iviza is so little visited that while the Isleña Marítima Compania Mallorquina de Vapores convey passengers thither from Majorca for fifteen pesetas first class, or eleven pesetas second, they charge eighteen and thirteen pesetas respectively to bring them back to Majorca, which looks as though they thought voyagers might require to be cajoled into going to Iviza, but would need no inducement to return.
From the records in existence one gathers that no relics of the Stone Age have been discovered in Iviza, though traces left by many dynasties prove that from very early times occupation of the lovely and fertile isle was hotly contested. Chaldeans, Egyptians, Phœnicians, Romans, Greeks, Vandals, Saracens, and Moors fought for its possession, but since the Aragonese invasion of the thirteenth century Iviza has belonged to Spain.
We had heard strange tales of the Ivizans—told, it must be admitted, by people who avowedly had never set foot on the island—grim stories of ferocity, of the crack of the ready pistol, of the slash of the handy knife. We had also heard that these grim islanders were invariably kind to strangers. Now we were on the way to judge for ourselves.
While the departure of the Barcelona boat lures all Palma to the mole, only a handful of spectators was assembled when, at noon on the 8th of April, the Lulio steamed westwards.
It was a fine day with a brisk head-wind. Like the high mountains around Sóller, the waves were white-crested, and for the first three hours the voyage was a delight. As the Lulio skirted the coast we enjoyed identifying the places now familiar to us by land. The little bays beyond Cas Catalá, Ben Dinat among its woods, the windmills above the town of Andraitx, and the long, high islet of Dragonera.
As the heliotrope mountains of Majorca receded into the distance, the brilliance faded. From warm azure the sea changed to purple, from purple to grey, and the wind blew keenly against us. The Lulio is only some 600 tons, and there was little shelter on the saloon deck, which is forward of the funnel. We felt inclined to envy the Ivizan passengers, who, camped on the snug lower deck, first ate strange messes, then after a brief but busy interlude of regret, curled up on their bundles and went snugly to sleep.
With us there were half a dozen men and one lady. And when the captain invited her to share the cover of the chart-house which abutted on our promenade, I envied her also until, after the dubious enjoyment of a few moments of splendid detachment from the common herd, she revealed signs of inward discomfort and fled to seek a less conspicuous position.