The Argosy — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

42 Letters from Majorca. satisfied his demands, and watched him and his broad-shouldered son put out to sea again. Then we mounted our apparatus, took a view of all this loveliness, and carried away a souvenir of our day. But no remembrance was needed. It was well fixed in the memory, where it remains. There are days and places, little incidents and episodes, that im- press themselves firmly upon the mind and remain treasures for ever. We returned to the hotel in due time, where the chef had put forth his best powers. These we appreciated, our spirits hardly diminished _by any fear of the probably sleepless night that lay before us. I think you would have laughed could you have seen H. C. for an hour and a half perambulating our room, candle in one hand, slipper in the other, endeavouring to exterminate the race of Manacor mosquitoes. It was great slaughter, not of the innocent but of the guilty. But for this raid, what would have been the consequence I know not: annihilation certainly. Yet still they came. The more we killed, the more seemed to take their place. If H. C.’s placid features could ever look revengeful it was now. After every successful skirmish, he gave a contented growl, like a bear that has just dispatched a human being and feels therefrom a comfortable sense of duty. Finally he retired for the night with a pillow-case slipped over his head. They found him out all the same. They would find you out if you were encased in iron or plaster of Paris. Last night’s Pandemonium with the giants and the barrels did not fail. It was louder and longer than ever. Sleep was out of the question. Then before daylight began the clerical Pandemonium amongst the bells in the tower. I have heard of an old song or air called “The devil among the tailors.” If, in this instance, you will substi- tute bells for tailors, and add an army of a thousand imps into the bargain, you will gain a faint idea of what we went through. As far as the hotel was concerned, we had nothing else to find fault with ; but then these three causes each represented five hundred causes of complaint rolled into one: a sum total of fifteen hundred grievances. Yesterday’s excursion was longer and more formidable. The caves of Arta were more distant than those of Manacor, Many people give two days to it, sleeping at the primitive inn of Arta. The whole thing cannot be done in less than twelve hours, and it may easily take fourteen or sixteen. We were about fifteen hours from first to last. We started soon after eight in the morning, our driver the same, but not our conveyance. It was after the usual uncomfortable - pattern, but still older and more shabby than the other. That one probably was considered too good and recherché to do the Arta excursion and run the risks of an eventful journey. To us it made Ves | comicbooks.com