Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1892-02-21

| prey " tuc 1OrUcS Oh
/ Curiously the people of the islands reached
| their highest prosperity under their African
/ rulers who taught them all the arts and
| cruelties Of piracy, until the Balearicans
/ became master of and spread terror over
| the entire Mediterranean. The isles were
| thus merged into clear vet terrible COM
monwealth, whose power was often courted
and employed by neighboring sovereigns.
| The accumulation OF treasure was enor-
nous so great as to invite cupidity of IN
| vasion and even to ssholy'' crusades; until
| Den Jayne !, King OF Arragon and Count of
| Barcelona, In September 1923, sailed for
| Palma with feet OF $50 galleys and is. 00O
| men, principally Catalanian peasant war
| riors. Palma fell
| The males of the mixed race of pirate
| Moors and Balearicans were butchered, sold
| as slaves, or baniShed to the African coast.
| The women became the slaves and wives of
| the Catalanian peasant warriors. The
| islands were partitioned of among the fol-
lowers OF Don Jayne l, founding a title
| landholding aristocracy. existing to this
| day, as proud rich and noble blooded as
| Europe ever knew. The then independent
kingdom of Balearica, under eYentful vas
| sallage to Pedro ~, of Arragon, was finally
merged with Arragon into the Spanish
dominion. With mothers of pure Balearic
and Moorish blood and fathers from the
sturdy, sluggish and over-contented Catal-
anian stock, tinged and tempered by a
matchless cline and fruitful soil, the 200
intervening years have moulded race fine
in physique, supple of limb, CHEEKY of tenn
per and heart, melodic of speech and tongue,
fair to look upon and truly good to find and
know.
Having left the beautiful, sleepy, sunlit
bay for Palma's streets, you have entered a
city of nearly 10000 souls, where Italy,
Spain and Algeria seem to have formed a
n
people. The hugeness of walls is every
where remarkable. Everything is con-
structed as if for eternal lasting. No
street is beautiful, but not one fails of a
picturesqueness that is often weird and
grotesque. Every structure possesses in
some portion, and frequently. in the most
unexpected position. some wonderful and
ornate ornamentation. Tiny squares with
whipping fountains are set in all sorts of
odd corners. A huge church may tower on
the one side of each of these.
At corner may stand, or project from Q
curious and seemingly unnecessary wall.
massive carved facade or gargoyle from
which the water is endlessly flowing. At
another side mass of vines and verdure,
capped to the sight by far domes or spires,
is only visible Outjutting at another spot,
the angle of some huge building seems to
have pushed its way half across the plaza,
and with its galleries, balconies and ire
mendous over-reaching roof Is ready to
pitch headlong into the open space beneath.
While another sunny side shows only roof
of red tiles sloping like a tent cover, un-
pierced by single aperture, from an ia
terminable height wholly to the edge of
stone cloister-like porch beneath.
In all open spaces are palm-trees. And
these, rising from courts, lifting their
spreading fronds high above roofs from
darkened thoroughfares, often leaning,
like the tower Of Pisa, out of quaint old
courts, and here and there being preserved
by an entire building constructed around
them, lend a dreamful, mystic, almost
lonesome and pathetic coloring to every
massing of structures upon which the eye
may rest. To me, the palm, whether I
have seen it in Southern Spain, in Sicily,
in Morocco, in Algeria, in Cuba, or here
in Palma whose name had its origin in
the former extraordinary number of palm
treets upon the island. has always been an
emblem of dolorous isolation and mex
pressible loneliness. 1t hints of the camel,
the Bedouin, the desert. In art, in story,
in fact it ever suggests the endless hope
lessness and impassl6ility of the barriers
between the races that subsist upon and
rest beneath it, and those who know and
love the maple, beech and oak.
1t is is a city OF steep ascents and ILL
paved streets, but of witching old bits of
curious architecture, and perhaps as lovely
anu Splenulu interiors as any MOORISH OF
semi Moorish city can show. All the houses
retain features of Moorish taste and evil
denceS of medieval forms Of habitation and
living. They are not higher than three
or four stories at best. More have but
the ground floor with an upper one, and
an attic called q porcho. Invariably the
entradas to the interior are studies in
carved arabesques and fanciful Moorish de-
signs. Balconies are as universal and as
huge or as lace-like and fragile as in Gran
ada or Seville. A marked popularity of all
structures is their huge projecting roofs,
spread out into pent-houses and frequently
most fascinatingly worked out and dec
GRATED. And the lowliest home in all
Palma is charming in its patio or court
that loveliest of all interior arrangement
around which Moslem or Christian home
can be built.
Every one Of these courts is a place of
beauty, sunshine and song. In every one
there is the melodic sound of water from
running jetty or fountain. In every one
whether glittering with slender marble col
umns and daintily wrought arches or soft
ened in tones with messy stone and crum- |
bling tiles, there are waving ferns and |
flowers. Vines clamor wantonly over enta-
blature, arch and balustrade The alcobas |
of all living in these abodes are within the |
sound of friendly calling voice. And not |
one is without birds of gay plumage and |
birds with endless songs. 1 often wonder |
why the rich of our own land do not build |
their homes like these. A dome of glass |
instead of the blue Mediterranean sky, is |
all the change required. Danish all the |
pall-like hangings and whitening shadow |
places from your stuffy homes and learn to |
live in the life giving light like the Latin |
and the Moor. Put your great New Eng |
fand fire places opposite your arched en- |
frances; and make of these sunlit open |
courts places of beauty, ightsomeness, mel |
ody and homeside joy.
Only when 1.-THE feast and professional |
days come is Palma a gay and brilliant city. |
At all other times it is sunny, restful, |
slum berous and almost silent Its street |
folk are the same as of any other southern |
Spanish city. There is greater content |
here. No one is in hurry. Among the |
.owly folk there is less excitability: greater |
good nature, and the latter is of the gentle /
not the uproariouS sort. Here, as in Mad |
rid, is your lechero or milkman who drives |
MS cows in from the country and milks for |
you before your door. The dulcero or seller |
Of sweets, with his songful call by day and |
MS tinkling bells by night, is here. The
,ochero or cabman, with comfortable Ian |
iaulet and pretty diligence, will serve you
without guile. The mercan-
,histe or notion peddler, the aquador or
water seller, the regatero or huckster, who
has the sociable habit OF entering shop or
home with his donkeys and paniers, the
,apatero or archway shoemaker and the
atonero or tinker, whom have found to be |
Spanish Gypsy, are all here in their lazy,
pleasant and picturesqe ways.