Inca is separated from the capital by twenty miles of fertile orchard land. The single line of rail cuts through great tracts of country planted with fig-trees, with almonds, and with olives. In many cases the ground underneath the trees was red and golden with autumn tinted leaves of grape vines, or verdant with the green of shooting corn.
As the moments passed, and the sun rose higher, the mist wreaths that had lain about the plain dispersed; and the blue hills to the north made noble background for the spreading plantations. Within our crowded carriage all was good humour. Nobody seemed to find anything to grumble at in the slow rate of progress.
An early stopping-place was Santa Maria. We had only come a few miles, yet girls were waiting to sell nuts, and biscuits put up in neat paper cylinders, to those of the travellers—and they were many—who had already had time to be hungry; while an old woman carrying a water-jar and tumbler attended, ready for the smallest coin to supply the thirsty with water.
The little journey was hardly begun, and there seemed but small reason to tarry at Santa Maria, yet the delay became so extended that the passengers, still maintaining their perfect good humour, began exchanging visits from one portion of the train to another. An old gentleman clad in a complete suit of striped mustard-colour plush and yellow elastic-sided boots called at our compartment to exchange compliments with a comely elderly dame, who in conjunction with handsome [jewellery] had her hair—which was in a pigtail—covered with a gaily striped silk handkerchief.
So the minutes wore on. At intervals a warning bell rang, but nobody accorded it the slightest attention, and wisely so, for nothing happened. At length, with a joint-dislocating jerk, we again got under-way, only to come to a dead stop a hundred yards further on.
The train, it was at length admitted, was too heavy for the motive power. The empty first-class carriages were detached; that accomplished, we actually progressed. The twenty miles were ultimately covered, and we succeeded in reaching Inca, with its picturesque row of windmills and grand setting of purple mountains, only two hours late.
Joining the stream of people, we entered the town, to discover what spectators less accustomed to crowds would long ago have discovered—that by some lucky chance we had come to Inca on the great day of its year—the annual feria. All the ways leading towards the centre of the town were lined with empty vehicles and up-tilted carts, and in the narrow streets the owners were promenading.
The fair was largely a business matter. It presented few of the elements of entertainment common to that of an English country town. The only thing in the way of amusement that we saw was a merry-go-round, and that was being quietly ignored.
One interesting feature was that each street held its own species of merchandise. In one, clothing and brightly-hued foot-gear were sold. Another was wholly given up to sweet stalls, whose principal article was a species of white confection composed apparently of chopped almonds and sugar. That it was good the myriads of bees that were tasting its sweetness bore testimony. In yet another street we had to walk between a long double row of women seated on rush-bottomed chairs, each bearing in her lap an earthenware cooking-pot full of a puzzling commodity that had something of the appearance of crimson threads. It appeared to be the only commodity they had to offer, and I own we never succeeded in discovering what it was.
The square in front of the principal church was the centre of attraction for us. On one side the ground was covered with a fine display of native ware. Jars, and plates, and pots, and vases, in the greens and yellows and browns that look so tempting and are so cheap. The touch of vermilion, artistically so valuable to the busy scene, was given by the huge sacks bulging with scarlet and orange sweet peppers that form such an important part of Majorcan food.