Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-02-20
WAKEMAN'S TRAVELS.
A Town Among the Beautiful Islands
of the Mediterranean.
HINTS TO RICH ROMEBUILDERS.
The Sunlit, lephyrus, Sleepy Old HarbOr
and City of Palma.
FELUCCAS AND THEIR ODD FREIGHTS
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE p1sPArcH.I

tween England ana all Mediterranean ports,
II is hut voyage of two nights and a day
from Gibraltar to the city of Palma, the
capital OF the Spanish dependency and
Province of Balearica, comprising the Belle
aric Islands: or, if you are wintering in
Southwestern Spain, you may journey IN a
night from Valencia or Barcelona TO this
least visited and most beautiful of all
Mediterranean regions.
Your steamer is seldom cut of sight of
some huge or tiny Mediterranean craft and
there is always consciousness of pleasant
nearness of other human interests and a
quiet and restfrl sense of companionship
upon this great land-ioczed sea-although
it is longer than the Atlantic is broad be-
tween Newfoundland and Ireland-I have
never known or felt on other waters.
However treacherouS the Mediterranean
has been to others. l have never seen its
face save in its blandest, sweetest mood;
Nhen its skies were tair, the sunshine above
it mild and loving, its airs zephyrus and
dreamful, and its face as blue and smiling
rs q rift OF June-day heaven.
Like Perfumed Cloud.
Then, too, before the tropic night settles
softly upon the sea and land like per-
fumed. translucent cloud Of darkening pearl,
there Is spread before you such reach of
grand and glorious coastline-the real
.'Atric's coral strand OF transcendent
beauty, and not the dread coast of the old
missionary hvmn-as renders true picturing
impossible: the whole chanceful panorama
OF headland. beach, forest, glittering village
and noble bay, backed along the ragged
horizon bv the eternal peaks of the Atlas
heights which even under tropic suns soar
above the clouds to the region of silences,
ChOstly ana pEantomtul with their crowns
OF snow and ice.
The very air upon this sea is odorous as
with thyme and balm. The fancy, quick
ened by tradition and Oriental mysticisms,
builds wondrous creations surprising the
widest and most fabulous tales of the
Arabian Nights. Snug in a steamer
chair, one Teclines and dreams Subtle es-
sences as from lotus flowers mingled with
sUbtler rose affairs touch the sense and blind
in sleep. The deck stewards must be simi-
iarly enthralled, for you are never rudely
disturbed as on the Atlantic liner; and
through all the caressful night, while the
stars grow and glow above, and the silent
phosphorescent sea pulses and throbs in
lale flames beneath you near this radiant
haven OF this radiant, storied sea.
= Congiomerate Architecture.
Here, Just as the sun is rising, between
the seas bed of crimson and the awakening
ciUv are swaying on the gentle tide hun
dreds ofstrange and curious craft, wild
couglomerate of the marine architecture OF
rne Mediterranean, their yellow spars but a
moment since like giant reeds above the
cleaning OF q shadOwv marsh, now pinked |
from tip 10 socket with the glorious sunlight
which hints in lis play upon their gaudy
ensign Of the lar lands where their home !
haNens lie; while far ont on the waters |
horizon, rounding Cape Flguera behind, |
COMES on the morning fleet of fisher boats, |
iheir sails Of every striking hue, and the |
songs OF the fishers stealing across the dis |
-aHcc in faint but melodious rythm.
Here and there are Turkish vessels with |
tremendous single sails, square built fore |
and art like settlers log cabin. Scores |
of the clumsy feluccas from Crete and the |
Ionian Islands, the Chebecs of the Arabs, |
and the identical great boats of the olden |
pirates, lie low in the warer roundabout, /
their half-naked Greek and Arab sailors, |
1.-the OF limb and nut-brown OF face, vividly
recalling those glorious DAYS of Barossa,
booty and blood But quainter than all are
the rare old tubs from Chioggia and Venice,
with the same high prows and sterns they
the glass Of MuranO, and carry back the
corn, oil and wine Of the Soller and Valde
mosa and on the bow of each craft is
painted an efligy of the Virgin, an endless
supplication TO tine waves against every |
form OF evil and peril at sea.
The CoIorfuI Harbor Scene.
And there, facing the shining sea and
caloriul harDor scene, rises from the shore
mere gracefully than Naples as fair as
Alciers, as tropical IN type and seeming as
Havana. The ampitheater like city of Palma:
once the brightest pearl of the seagirt isles:
still. stately, silent, beautiful; with tone
and tint OF the Orient in its pinnacles and
sniuarets Its dome-shaped beiries and its
weird and shadowy palms. Lovingly con-
tempating the exquisite picture, its ro-
martic history old and new hutters from
the hiding places of memory and troop clear
and distinct into your musings; even as the
morning doves of Palma sweep from the
thousand shadowv homing inches of its
massive cathedral, and, alighting on buttress
peak, battlement and spire, form process
sional siIhouettes of FURNISHED puce and
blue against the eastern sky.
Out Of the mythic DAYS come brave old
tales of the folk that iourished here. The
inhabitants, 4 heroic race, fought naked
with slinCs: and from the dexterity of the
v |
Ealearica country of the strong-armed
The old legends have it that their
proficiency with this weapon
was attained through the mothers refusing
their children food until ''thev could sling
it down" from beams or branches on which
ii was hung. This very city of Palma is
built upon the ruins of the old Roman town
founded bv Ouintus Cecilius Metellus, who
the islands with galleys plated
with OK hides and skins as a protection i
against The fatal strokes of the Balearic
singers"
= Commonwealth of Power.
Ruled in turn by Vandals and Goths. the
islands eventually fell into the hands of the
EIoors, shortly after Southern Spain became
prey TO the hOrdes Of Gebr-al-Tarek.
Cariously the people of the island reached
their highest prosperity under their African
rulers who taught them all the arts and
cruelties of piracy, until the Baiearicans
became master of and spread terror over the
entire Mediterranean. The isles were thus
merged into clear yet terrible common
wealth, whose power was often courted and |
employed by neighboring soYereigns The
accumulation Of treasure was enormous; so
great as to invite cupidity of invasion and |
even to "holy" crusades; until Don Jayme
Z. King of Aragon and Count of BARGE
ona, IN September 1929, sailed for Palma
with a feet of $50 galleys and $4,000
men, principally Catalunian peasant war
-iors. Palma fell. The males of the
mixed race of pirate Moors and Balearicans !
we're butchered, sold as slaves, or banisned
10 the African coast. The women became
he slaves and wives of the Catalunian
peasant warriors The islands were petit
Toned off among the followers of Don
Tavme / founding a titled iand-holdinu