Our next visit was to the Lonja. In the good old days when Palma was a great mercantile centre—the days when thirty thousand sailors found employment from its port—a Majorcan architect designed the Lonja to serve as an exchange.
This old-time architect and his builders must have been past masters of their art, for though hundreds of years have slipped by since then, and the Lonja no more serves any active purpose, it still survives to delight by the simple grandeur of its design. Seen as it stands with only a wide thoroughfare separating it from the sparkling waters of the port, with its palm-trees in front and a cloudless blue sky overhead, the antique building is one of the most beautiful sights in a city that abounds in beautiful things.
We had been told that the Lonja was open to the public on the afternoons of Thursdays and Sundays. So one Sunday evening, early in our stay, the Man and I stopped in front of the great door, and tried to push it open. It did not yield a hair's-breadth. Indeed, it seemed to wear an expression of stolid immobility, as though secretly defying our puny efforts to induce it to reveal the treasures it guarded.
Sitting in a chair in the shadow of the building an old policeman was dozing. Him the Man roused and interrogated.
He shook his head over the idea of the Lonja being on view on stated days. But the Lonja was at the disposicion of the señor. The señor could see it on any day. He would fetch the keeper of the keys.
Toddling off across the square of the palm-trees, he disappeared, and in a few minutes returned, followed by that official, bearing the emblem of his office in the form of a massive key.
The great door opened and closed behind us, and we found ourselves in a vast square hall, from whose dark marble floor six noble pillars rose to meet the high vaulted roof.