The small steamer that plies three times a week—weather permitting—between Palma and the island of Iviza does so wholly in vain as far as foreign visitors are concerned. I think if the whole annals of the Grand Hotel were searched they would hardly produce a single record of a stranger having gone to Iviza, or, if he did, of having ever come back to tell the tale.

It was obvious that the only way of finding out anything about the island and its inhabitants was to go there ourselves, and, prompted by curiosity, we one fine day boarded the noonday boat and set forth on our voyage of exploration, our only life-line a letter of introduction to one Sebastian Roig, keeper of the Fonda de la Marina at Iviza—a letter full of greeting and amiability, with a civil postscript to the effect that our blood would be required at his hands if evil befell us during our stay in the island.

Away we went. Once outside the bay the little IsleÑo rolled horribly, and we ourselves remained prostrate below, till at eight o’clock in the evening we felt the boat come to a standstill and heard the anchor being let down; whereupon we arose and came on deck, thinking that the worst was over and that we could now step on shore.

Bitterly were we disappointed!

Neither quay nor shore was in sight, for owing to the rough sea we had not been able to enter the harbour at all, but were tossing up and down half a mile from the pier. It was pitch dark and raining hard. Some fishermen in glistening oilskins were unloading tunny from a bobbing, lateen-sailed felucca alongside, and we could hear the thuds of the stiff, heavy fish being thrown on board. The dim light of a lantern fell upon a party of broad-hatted peasants collected on the wet deck, who one by one were vanishing over the ship’s side and dropping into a cockleshell of a boat that pranced about below. Presently it was full, and backing away from the steamer it disappeared, with a steady splash of oars, into the darkness.

Such, then, was to be our landing at Iviza! For three-quarters of an hour we waited, looking out at the slashing rain and feeling so unutterably miserable that, had it been possible—even at this eleventh hour—to turn back to Palma, we should assuredly have turned. But it was not possible, as the IsleÑo was bound for Valencia, and when the boat came back for the third time to fetch us and one native gentleman—the only passengers left on board—there was nothing for it but to grope our way to the wet, slippery ladder and from thence to drop either into the tossing boat, or, as seemed far more probable, into the sea.

And now, in this blackest moment of our whole journey, appeared a deus ex machina in the shape of the aforementioned seÑor; prompted by the kindness of his heart, and perhaps not unmoved by the sight of two very forlorn strangers, he took us in charge and reassured us; there would be no danger at all, he said, if we would cling firmly to the chain at the foot of the steps and wait for the boatmen to catch us; he would tell them to be careful, and as for our valises, a boy would come up and fetch them when we were safely in the boat. He helped us down the swaying ladder, and unseen arms clutched us and dropped us on to a seat, where we sat down in two large puddles. Our unknown friend jumped in after us, and the silent oarsmen pulled away from the black hull looming overhead, and rowed us across the inky, swirling water to the quay, where a row of twinkling lights along the harbour’s edge heralded the town.

Landing at a flight of steps, we paid the boatmen their fee of two and a half pesetas, and then splashed away in mud and darkness to the inn, where our new acquaintance left us after promising to look us up on the morrow. Dinner was going on in the big comedÓr on the ground floor—the company consisting of a number of Ivizan residents and some officers in uniform, with all of whom we exchanged salutations as we took our seats at the long table d’hÔte. Never was food more welcome than that set before us. Half an hour later—wet and tired, but no longer hungry—we went upstairs, and were shown into a large red-tiled room, arranged in the Spanish fashion with two alcoves, shut off by glass doors, containing each an excellent bed. Unpacking our valises, we were soon fast asleep, fully prepared to take a more cheerful view of things on the morrow.

But, alas and alas! when we woke and went to the window the prospect was as dispiriting as ever. The fonda stood on the very edge of the water, and we looked out upon a landlocked port shrouded in fog. It was still raining, and the leaden sky was merged into a leaden sea spattered with raindrops. A few seagulls drifted past the window, uttering melancholy cries, and the only sign of human life was a solitary old woman who was fishing patiently from her front doorstep, seated under a large umbrella.

At this juncture a voice at the keyhole announced breakfast, and going out on to the landing we found tea and hot buttered toast laid for us on a little table. The tea possessed in a high degree the primary essential of good drinking-water—absolute tastelessness; but the buttered toast was comforting, and as we ate it we discussed the situation seriously.

Here we were in Iviza, with no possibility of getting away for the next thirty-six hours, when the IsleÑo would call on her return from Valencia. The weather looked hopeless, but if we were going to allow ourselves to be influenced by it we should in all probability end by seeing nothing at all, and our eight hours’ crossing would have been in vain; our clothes were already so wet that they need not be taken into account; and after considering all these points we decided to sally forth and look about us.

Hardly had we defied the Fates when they relented. The sky became lighter, the clouds began to clear away, and as we left our inn a welcome gleam of sunshine broke out, at sight of which all the ships lying at anchor in the harbour with one accord spread out their wet sails to dry.

At the end of the mole a man was fishing in the shelter of the great breakwater some twenty feet in height, and thinking that from the summit we might obtain a good view of the town we asked him if there was any means of scaling it. Courteously raising his hat, he replied that the seÑoras would find no other escalera than the broken end of the breakwater itself—a nearly vertical face of stone blocks, each the size of a grand piano—which he immediately proceeded to climb, carrying our camera and tripod in one hand. With his help I also reached the top, from whence a good general view of the town is obtained, as well as over the bay to where the pale-grey silhouette of the distant lighthouse divides sea and sky.

Very picturesque is Iviza, massed high above the harbour—the lower town, chiefly inhabited by fishing folk, separated by a sharply marked line of fortification from the upper town, the old Jevitzah of the Moors. Crowning the highest point stands the fortified cathedral, built almost immediately after the expulsion of the infidels, and adjoining it is the citadel, enclosing within its walls the governor’s residence, and barracks for a hundred men.

To the upper town we presently ascended, escorted by our waiter, who had been sent by our host—mindful, probably, of the postscript to our letter of introduction—to attend us. Inquisitive faces appeared at balconies and doorways as we picked our way through the narrow, muddy streets of the lower town. Purveyors of drinking water were going from house to house with donkey-carts laden with earthenware jars; scores of cats feasted on remnants of fish in the gutter, and the melancholy Ivizan hound roamed his native alleys like some canine shade in search of the happy hunting grounds. Crossing a drawbridge we pass under the fortified gateway built in the reign of Philip II.—“Catholic and most invincible king of Spain and the East and West Indies”—and ascend by a steep cobbled path to the summit of the town. Many of the houses are extremely ancient looking, and have carved lintels and mullions, or the arms of Aragon cut in stone upon their walls. Passing the prison, where a bored official was leaning out of the window and yawning heavily, we entered the courtyard of the citadel—after giving up our camera to the sentry on guard—and sat down on a low bastion carpeted with sweet alyssum to enjoy the panorama around us.

From this height Formentara and all the lesser rocky islets that compose the PityusÆ group are clearly discerned out at sea. The general aspect of Iviza itself is that of low, wooded hills. Cutting straight across the island is the long white road leading to St. Antonio on the western coast, twelve miles distant, and some six miles to the south of us glisten the great salt works, the famous salinas of Iviza.

To St. Antonio we drove in the afternoon. It was Holy Week, during which no carriage is allowed to enter the town, and we had to walk out to the end of the street where a little carrÉta awaited us; it was driven by a comic looking countryman, and drawn by a spirited little grey horse, a caballo de carrÉra, one of the racing trotters for which the islanders have a great partiality. Packed into this small and fragile conveyance, the driver and our invaluable waiter in front, ourselves squeezed into the little side-seats behind, with every symptom of approaching cramp, we announced ourselves ready to start.

Skirting the town we struck inland along a broad and splendid road, which for the first few miles is comparatively flat and then rises to a kind of table-land in the centre of the island, to fall away again towards the further coast. The plain is thick with olive groves, date palms, fig and almond orchards. Snow-white houses nestle amongst dark clumps of pines—flat-roofed, oriental-looking houses that resemble great cubes of chalk, with an arcade of roundheaded arches opening into a court on the ground floor, and above this a broad, open gallery where the inhabitants can sit during the noonday heat. This windowless form of architecture is a legacy of the Moors, and the Ivizan peasants are said to have preserved the characteristics of their Moorish predecessors to a higher degree than the inhabitants of either of the sister isles have done. The town-dweller or fisherman of Iviza—generally of Spanish extraction—is said to draw a sharp distinction between himself and the peasants of the interior, whom he looks upon as semi-barbarians. Their boats are a subject of great merriment to him, and he makes a point of laughing heartily if he meets a party of country-folk afloat.

“At sea,” says the fisherman, “I have no fear of the peasants—but ashore! they are worse than the Moors!”

With a character for being turbulent, hot-tempered, and ill-educated, the Ivizans present a great contrast to the mild Majorcans. Murders are not infrequent among them, the almost invariable cause being a quarrel over cards or the jealousy of rival suitors.

Poor and proud, the peasants look with scant favour on any member of their community who may have grown rich and who sets up to be a person of consequence on that account. “Heaven preserve us,” says the Ivizan, “from the shoe that has become a boot!” There are no really wealthy families in the island, and outside the capital we saw no good houses. The ground is far less highly cultivated than the Majorcan plains, and Dame Nature asserts herself in a wealth of wild flowers; the fields are red with poppies and blue with grape-hyacinths, and on either side of the road runs a brilliant border composed of pink tufts of allium swaying on slender stalks, pale dandelions, dwarf iris, charlock, red dwarf ranunculus, small yellow cistus and a bright blue borage. As the road rises we drive through undulating slopes where the juniper and various conifers grow. The hillsides are covered with the maritime pine—whence the islands derived their old name of Pine islands—and large open stretches of uncultivated ground, intersected by rough walls of reddish stone, are given up to the great fennel, seen here for the first time, heath, asphodel, pink and white cistus, and many other shrubs.

All this is very unlike a Majorcan landscape, but still more striking are the parties of country folk that we meet upon the road. It is a fÊte day, and every one is in grande tenue; whole families are coming to the town or walking back to their villages—bouquets of bright colour, purple, blue, yellow, pink, green, and red—quaint figures, such as one dimly remembers having met with in bygone days on nursery plates, and having accepted as truthful representations of that romantic race—the foreign peasant. Here they all were as large as life.

The women wear a dark bodice with long sleeves, over which is folded a shawl with a border of gay-coloured embroidery worked on black silk. The skirt is immensely full, and often accordion-pleated, and it is worn over half a dozen petticoats which distend it to the dimensions of a crinoline, and make the wearer look high waisted and very stout. It is cut short in front, to display six inches of red or pink underskirt ornamented with scrolls of black braid, and on top of all comes a very short bright-coloured apron, which gives the women a three-decker appearance. The hair is worn in a plait down the back and smoothly parted on the forehead, the headkerchief being often embroidered with gay silk flowers. A heavy gold chain is sometimes worn round the neck, and the shoes are of white canvas and resemble Moorish slippers, being turned up in a point at the toe.

The men are hardly less picturesque. Their velveteen trousers of peacock-blue, brown, or purple are cut tight at the knee and spreading at the foot, like those of our costers or sailors. The coat of dark-blue cotton is very short and shaped something like a blouse, being gathered into pleats at the collar and hanging loose and full all round. They wear a white shirt with a vivid pink or blue sash, a broad-brimmed felt hat with ribbons hanging down behind, and their costume is completed by a fringed shawl in red and green plaid which they hang round their neck.

The little girls are precise replicas of their mothers—long skirt, apron, headkerchief and all—so that at a distance it is impossible to say whether it is a party of children or of women coming towards one, and it was often a surprise to see a small matronly figure skip suddenly across a ditch with an agility beyond her apparent years.

When we reached St. Antonio, a village of clean whitewashed houses, with reefs of bedrock cropping up in the streets, we got out our camera, and were soon surrounded by a friendly group of peasants fully as much interested in our appearance as we were in theirs. Yet in no way did their curiosity get the better of their manners. We found them quite willing to be photographed if we wished it, but the posing of a group was unaccompanied by any of the bashful giggling with which our own yokels would meet such a request coming from a foreigner. Earnest and dignified, quite devoid of self-consciousness, and not easily moved to mirth, the Ivizans struck us as the most perfect-mannered people we had yet met.

The mere fact of our being English was a great recommendation in the eyes of the natives, for the forthcoming marriage of King Alfonso with an English princess was of course the topic of the day, and all classes were equally delighted with the match. As compatriots of their future Queen we therefore met with an unusually favourable reception, and though I am sure none of the peasants had the remotest idea where England was situated we found a great bond of union to consist in the fact that both we and they lived on an island.

Many were the questions we had to answer—Did one reach England before getting to America? Was England far from London?

One man left his plough to come and tell us that he liked the English very much, which was a little surprising when one considered that till that moment he had probably never set eyes on any one of our nationality. We heard subsequently, however, that some years ago an Englishman hailing from Birmingham had stayed in the island, and though, to our host’s surprise, we could not supply the unknown traveller’s name, we were shown an unmistakable proof of his visit in the form of an English book—the only existing specimen in Iviza.

We got back to our inn in time for dinner, and found the same company again assembled at table. The Fonda de la Marina is the fashionable restaurant of the town, and it caters for a considerable clientÈle among the residents in addition to its own guests. The cookery was doubtless excellent, but the dishes were so wholly native in character that we perhaps failed to appreciate them as fully as did our fellow convives. During Holy Week the fare is maigre, and our menu that night was the following:—

A tureen-full of shellfish, stewed—shells and all—with rice and fragments of lobster.

A mess of pottage, very thick, containing white beans and cabbage.

Another mess—chunks of salt cod, with eggs, potatoes and peas.

Whole fishes, boiled, with yellow sauce.

A sweet cake.

Cheese, raisins, and oranges.

The following morning we drove to Santa EulÁlia. There are only two really firstrate roads in Iviza—one to Sant Antonio, the twelve-mile drive we had already taken, the other—slightly longer—to San Juan, at the northeastern extremity of the island; it was in this direction that we set off at eight o’clock.

The view of the town as we skirted the harbour was extremely striking. The great sails of the merchantmen lying at anchor in the bay shone white against the deep blue sea beyond, and the low sun was catching the angles of the fortifications and casting cobalt shadows upon the snowy, irregular houses clustering upon the hill crowned by the campanile of the cathedral. Market folk were coming into town—countrywomen in broad be-ribboned hats of palmito plait, mounted on mules and donkeys with laden panniers—a sight never seen in Majorca. Innumerable frogs croaked with jangling grotesque jollity from hidden reservoirs in the rich huerta, or garden, of vines and almonds, beans and wheat, through which we were driving. Presently the road rises, and winds through pretty wooded slopes and copses of conifers. Here and there are stacked great heaps of pine bark, used for tanning the fishing nets. Sheep seek invisible sustenance upon stony red ground, and young pigs sport in the shade of budding fig-trees, the prevailing principle seeming to be to turn beasts out to graze wherever they will do the least harm.

Turning aside from the main road we take a rough track leading down to the coast. Very Corot-like is the landscape before us, framed by the stems of gnarled olive or dark knotted carob. On a small eminence by the seashore stands Santa EulÁlia—a frankly oriental-looking village of blank white walls and blue shadows, ringed round with a fence of prickly pear. By a steep zigzag path one climbs to the old fortress-church upon the summit, and enters the building through an immense vaulted and enclosed crypt-like porch, supported on massive pillars and capable of holding a couple of hundred people. In the Middle Ages this church, like most of those in the island, formed the stronghold of the villagers during the frequent piratical raids, and inside the porch is the well from which the besieged drew their water supply.

Stepping through a side door one enters the cemetery—a tiny enclosure upon the hillside, with nameless wooden crosses half buried in grass and a tangle of yellow daisies. Here the dead lie, under sunshine and sea-breezes—and from here the eye ranges far over land and sea, over wooded hills, undulating red plains, palm-trees and rocky islets. Commenting upon the beauty of the scene to our faithful waiter, he admitted that it was indeed a precious one—a complimentary term which he applied indiscriminately to views, roads, the weather, or the condition of the sea—but far more precious, he hastened to assure us, would be the sight of the river which we should presently be vouchsafed.

The river was unfortunately not looking its best, being very nearly dry; but we duly inspected its rocky bed, fringed with oleander and dotted with water pools, and expressed our admiration of the fine stone bridge that spans it. The pride with which the natives regard their Rio de Santa EulÁlia is due to the fact that it is the only river in the island.

We went back to Iviza at racing speed, the little horse trotting fifteen miles an hour on the flat, and straining every nerve to raise his average. We feared that it would over tire him to take us to the Salt Works in the afternoon, but his owner laughed at the idea, and assured us that the good little beast would be quite ready to start again after a two hours’ rest. We were somewhat amused when, at the end of our stay, we received the bill for our three long drives—a bill for fifteen pesetas, exactly the sum that we should have paid for a half-day’s excursion at Palma, where carriage hire is by no means cheap.

“The donkey makes out a different bill from the driver,” says a Minorcan proverb, and whether our little horse considered his three silver douros an adequate compensation for the work he had done I cannot say—but his owner was completely satisfied. The Ivizans are as yet—and long may they remain so!—too unsophisticated to charge special prices to a foreigner. A striking instance of their natural honesty occurred on the night of our arrival. I had given a peseta to the sailor lad who had brought down our luggage from the deck of the IsleÑo and put it into the boat, and to my surprise he handed me back the coin at once. Thinking that it was either a bad one, or that he expected more, I asked our friend who was with us in the boat, what I ought to give; but he replied that the boy had already received threepence from himself for carrying the luggage, that nothing further was expected, and that the peseta had been returned because it was considered too much.

Our third and last expedition in Iviza was destined to be the most enjoyable of all. Our kind friend—whom we found to be one of the municipal officials of the town—volunteered to accompany us to the Salt Works, and en passant to show us the recently-discovered Phoenician necropolis, in the excavation of which he was deeply interested. Although it had long been known that the Phoenicians colonised the Balearics—the very name of the islands being derived, as some think, from their god Baal—it is only of late years that actual proofs of their occupation have been obtained. Iviza was said to have remained under their sway for a thousand years, and to have had a capital with a population of a hundred thousand souls, and the Phoenician cemetery which three years ago was discovered just outside the town goes far to substantiate this theory.

Alighting from our carrÉta at the foot of a rocky reef immediately to the south of the town, we climbed the hillside and reached a grove of ancient olive-trees growing in the crevices of a great granite outcrop. The whole hillside is honeycombed with rock tombs—they are everywhere, on the hill, and on the lower ground—filled in with earth, built over, planted over; it is the burial ground of a nation. More than a thousand tombs have already been located, and of these some sixty have been investigated at the cost of two or three Ivizan gentlemen who are interested in the subject.

The general type of tomb is an oblong hole or shaft, cut in the live rock and descending to a depth of six to eight feet, whence a low sloping gallery leads to the subterranean burial chamber. Each chamber contains one, two, or even three massive stone sarcophagi, made from a kind of white limestone found on the neighbouring island of Formentara. Not a tomb has yet been opened but what it has already been violated—it is presumed by the Vandals. The heavy sarcophagus lids have been pushed aside or broken, and any contents of value—if such there were—long ago abstracted. But of what the Vandals overlooked or despised, there yet remains enough to rejoice the heart of an archÆologist, and a small museum has already been created in Iviza for the reception of the finds as the work of excavation goes on. Bones and skulls, once clothed in Tyrian purple and fine linen, are collected and ranged neatly upon shelves. Hundreds of amphorÆ are found, each sarcophagus containing two, placed in a depression at the feet of the dead, while others seem to have served as cinerary urns for the remains of children.

There is a large collection of red pottery—busts, statuettes, and masks—some of the latter with an Egyptian cast of countenance, others of a comic type with glass or metal rings in the nose. There are some beautiful tear-bottles of iridescent glass, coloured with metallic oxides, and delicate pottery jars for ointment. There are shallow open oil lamps, shaped like a shell, and bronze rings and seals. That very day the workmen had unearthed a pretty ram’s head with curling horns, of fragile white earthenware, which our friend showed us. He also had in his possession what I should suppose to be the most valuable find yet made—an engraved scarab of dark green hÆmatite, comprising on its tiny surface the figure of a man on horseback, with a spear in his hand and a dog by his side, the whole cut with the delicacy of the finest intaglio.

No inscriptions have as yet come to light, but as each tomb is opened the hope revives that it may prove to be in an unrifled condition and contain something that may throw a fresh light upon the burial customs of a long-vanished people. An illustrated pamphlet dealing with the Ivizan discoveries up to the present was in process of preparation at the time of our visit, and I much regret not having received a copy in time to acquaint my reader with fuller details regarding this necropolis than we were able to gather during our very brief stay.

Continuing our drive to the Salt Works, we pass the old fortified church of San Jorge, standing alone amongst the fields, its battlemented walls glistening snow-white against the distant hills. This church was built in the fourteenth century, and has withstood many an assault by the Moors.

Another hour, over a ludicrously bad road, brings us to the low-lying Salinas near the coast; one might almost fancy oneself in a miniature Switzerland, for these salt-pans—which are said to have been known to the Phoenicians—cover an area of six square miles, and resemble inland lakes in whose unruffled surface the surrounding hills are mirrored. There are thirteen great estancos or shallow basins, fringed with glittering salt-crystals and intersected by sea-water canals, and causeways along which a little train puffs breathlessly towards the shining islands of salt stacked on stone platforms in the water; filling its trucks—each of which contains a ton—it hurries back to the embarking station, and pulling up on a staging running out into the sea, tips its load down a wooden shoot into a barge below, where bare-legged men—half salted up—are busy levelling the white mound, and presently convey it to a big Norwegian steamer lying in the harbour. Other salt boats are bound for Russia, or for America. One would think there was enough salt to supply the whole world; it lies in deep snowdrifts on the quay and is piled up into mountains by men who look like black flies beside it. The busiest time is during the summer, when the water in the shallow basins evaporates and the deposited salt is collected, but at that season the locality is considered unhealthy—the combined heat and moisture breeding malaria and a plague of mosquitoes.

By evening light the Salinas are very beautiful. The colours of the sunset are repeated in the water, and the dark banks and rushes stand out in sharp-cut silhouette against the soft purple of the hills around. Out at sea rises the double fang of the island rock DÉtra—an inaccessible pinnacle, in the summit of which the wild bees have nested from time immemorial; the whole rock is said to be sticky with honey, which at times descends in rivulets even to the water’s edge.

It was dusk when we regained our inn, and at ten o’clock that same night the red lights of the IsleÑo were seen gliding into the bay, and we were summoned to go on board. Taking leave of our most kind friend—who, not content with having done the honours of his native island, insisted upon our accepting some charming Phoenician relics as souvenirs of our stay—we went down to the quay and were seen off by our host and the faithful waiter, the latter remarking, as he shook hands with us, that we might safely rely upon the night being a precious one.

The sea was indeed like glass. The little steamer lay within fifty yards of the shore, and not a ripple stirred as we were rowed across in company with a tunny boat just in from Formentara—the fish standing on their heads in baskets on the deck, their big tails sticking up like ammunition for some torpedo boat. On an even keel we glided out into the night, and awoke at five the next morning to see the red watch tower of Porto Pi slip past the port hole. A fiery dawn was breaking over Palma as we went on shore; half a silver moon hung in the sky, and the masts and rigging of the shipping in the harbour were cut like a fine etching against the colourless mass of the town.

Even at this early hour the day’s work had begun; scavengers’ carts were going their rounds; yawning octroi men were astir; women were already fetching water from the tortoise-fountain on the Borne, and as we reached the hotel a belated watchman was making off with lantern and staff, to hide in some quiet retreat till dusk again brought him out to his bat-like life.

Our visit to Iviza was already a thing of the past, but the little island that had before been only a name to us was now a very definite memory of pleasant days spent in the open air, of friendly and picturesque natives, of sunshine and charming scenery—while even our unpropitious landing had turned out to be a blessing in disguise, in acquainting us with the resident whose kindness contributed so largely to the pleasant recollections which we shall always retain of our stay in Iviza.