On one side a long wall was formed of hooded carts filled with turkeys. And round each brood was a little group of townsfolk, making critical survey of the birds and, after a good deal of wordy chaffering, purchasing. The other side was occupied by a long row of fowl-sellers, who treated their wares with less respect; for splendid cocks, their burnished plumage gleaming with a thousand prismatic hues, lay helpless, their feet tied together, their bills in the dust.
Sucking-pig being the favourite Christmas dinner in this land of sunshine, by far the larger space was allotted to the swine. And swine there were to satisfy all demands, from litters of tiny sucking-pigs surrounding their mothers to pigs of quite considerable bulk. As the pigs were sold by weight, it is safe to say that there wasn't a thirsty pig in the market that day. And while we saw few pigs being fed, we saw many being encouraged to drink. Some of the salesmen stood by their laden carts ready, on the approach of a likely customer, to thrust a hand into the mass of swart animalism and extract a protesting squeaker. Others sat lazily on chairs by their flocks, content to wait to be approached. While some of the older herdsmen wore slung over the shoulders the distinctive goatskin of their calling, most of the younger were attired in suits of corduroy, sun-faded into glorious harmonies of golds and browns and blues. We noticed that whilst certain of the men dealt in turkeys, none of the women sold pigs.
And out of the city streamed the townsfolk, money in hand for the purchase of their Christmas dinner. Ladies in mantillas, attended by neat maids, bought turkeys; prosperous-looking tradesmen, accompanied by pinafored shop-lads provided with bits of rope, walked about pricing pigs; and lean operatives, with a hungry eye for the yearly tit-bit.
It was after a pig had changed owners that the fun began. The market being held outside the city walls, the purchase had first to be taken to the consumos shed to be weighed and have the duty paid on it. And the pigs, although comparatively placid while yet in company with their old comrades, when severed from them protested with full strength of lung and limb. Then woe betide the luckless being whose task it was to carry the agitator home. One man only did we see who had had the forethought to bring a sack in which to carry home his rebellious purchase.
Everybody appeared to have evolved a different method of conveyance. Some men wore them as a collar round the neck, grasping the fore feet in one hand, the hind in the other. Some tried to lead them, with dire results. One flustered woman we saw had a child in her arms and was dragging at the end of a string a plump young porker that refused to walk. The majority, relinquishing any attempt at suasion, simply clutched the furiously objecting quadrupeds desperately in their arms and made the best of their way through the streets.
Just as we were leaving the market we encountered a trio of elderly ladies, attended by a demure little maid in pigtail and rebozillo, whom we had noticed making a careful scrutiny before deciding. Their choice seemed at last to have been made, for the young servant carried in her arms, as tenderly as though it were a baby, a tiny sucking-pig. So far it had uttered no complaint, but just as the group turned into the street it awoke to the knowledge that something untoward was happening, and with the energy of one thrice its fighting weight, began squealing and squirming. In a moment consternation fell upon the sedately pacing quartette. When we last saw them a man had been hired to carry home the pigling, whose lamentations still rent the air.
During the day or two that would elapse before the creatures were sacrificed for consumption they appeared to reside in the bosom of the family circles and to be treated as honoured guests. The fact that a home was in a flat three floors up did not deter its occupants from housing a four-footed edible guest. Turkeys strutted in doorways and upon high balconies. Proud children escorted pigs out for an airing.
Two days before the feast we noticed on a piece of waste ground just inside the gate of Santa Catalina an enclosure roughly constructed of planks and sacking. From a post fluttered a banner of brown paper inscribed with the legend, Se matan lechonas (Little pigs kill themselves). And thither, the right moment having arrived, people brought their pets. Within the enclosure, but in full view of the public, the piglings were killed, soused with the boiling water that was kept bubbling over a fire, scraped and made ready for the pot in the twinkling of an eye.
On Christmas Eve we attended the midnight service in the Cathedral. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the streets of Palma were unusually busy. Groups of people, the women and children all carrying folding stools, or in some cases rush-seated chairs, were walking sedately in the direction of the churches.
In the silver light there was something mysterious about the succession of black-robed figures—the women's heads muffled in black mantillas or black silk kerchiefs—that moved steadfastly along the narrow mediæval streets.