The Argosy — page 44: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

34 Letters from Majorca. The landlady was anxious to make us comfortable and do her best, and succeeded. She showed us a goodly-sized room at the end of the balcony, with two beds, and this we preferred to two smalk closets containing only one bed each. Health depends upon fresh air and a certain number of cubic feet. Not one word of any lan- guage but her own can she speak, this good woman, nor anyone else about the hotel. But. we never came to a deadlock. We had brought dictionaries and “ Conversations,” and found these equal to © any interpreter and much less troublesome. Whilst dinner was preparing, we strolled into the town. The church has very little to recommend it. I can hardly tell you what its architecture is like. A little of everything, I think, but nothing per- fect or positive. The interior, too, is square in some parts and round in others. Thus, you see, it has any amount of variety, if not very much beauty of its own. The town is not especially curious. There is little evidence of wealth or what the last generation would have called gentility about it. It cannot be considered a city of palaces, inhabited by rich people. At any rate as far as we saw or learned. Many of the streets are narrow, and the small houses are tenanted by hard-working people. Here and there we heard the sound of aloom. Some of the better houses have fine doorways and remarkable knockers, a few of which H. C. would have liked to wrench off and run away with—not from a spirit of mischief, but from a love of the antique. The antique was also strongly represented in the human form: I never before saw so many old men and women together in one place. It must have been accident, for I cannot discover that Manacor is celebrated for its ancient population. But it was St. Methusalah’s Day, and no doubt the old people had mustered to do him honour. You must not look for the day in your Ecclesiastical Almanack ; it exists only in Manacor. We were attracted by the courts of the Manacor houses. Not open to the sky as those of Palma, but for the most part forming a large entrance hall. These courts are the ordinary living-rooms of the inhabitants. Their architecture is often fine, and the simplicity of the furniture is remarkable, giving to the whole a certain grandeur, refinement and sense of space, that we thought particularly charming. Later on, when again sauntering through the town, they had lighted their old-fashioned lamps, and these courts, with their inhabitants, looked more picturesque than ever. Some of the women sat at their spinning-wheels ; others were knitting or doing some kind of fancy work; many wore a peculiar head-dress that was quite dignified. Often we stopped and admired, and if we felt presuming, they evidently did not think so. In many cases, had we only spoken the language, I am quite sure that we might have gone in and found a very friendly welcome. comicbooks.com