A casual delight

Women Trav­ellers in Cata­lan Lands

Join­ing the stream of peo­ple, we en­tered the town, to dis­cover what spec­ta­tors less ac­cus­tomed to crowds would long ago have dis­cov­ered – that by some lucky chance we had come to Inca on the great day of its year – the an­nual feria. All the ways lead­ing to­wards the cen­tre of the town were lined with empty ve­hi­cles and up-tilted carts, and in the nar­row streets the own­ers were prom­e­nad­ing.

The fair was largely a busi­ness mat­ter. It pre­sented few of the el­e­ments of en­ter­tain­ment com­mon to that of an Eng­lish coun­try town. The only thing in the way of amuse­ment that we saw was a merry-go-round, and that was being qui­etly ig­nored.

One in­ter­est­ing fea­ture was that each street held its own species of mer­chan­dise. In one, cloth­ing and brightly-hued foot-gear were sold. An­other was wholly given up to sweet stalls, whose prin­ci­pal ar­ti­cle was a species of white con­fec­tion com­posed ap­par­ently of chopped al­monds and sugar. That it was good the myr­i­ads of bees that were tast­ing its sweet­ness bore tes­ti­mony. In yet an­other street we had to walk be­tween a long dou­ble row of women seated on rush-bot­tomed chairs, each bear­ing in her lap an earth­en­ware cook­ing-pot full of a puz­zling com­mod­ity that had some­thing of the ap­pear­ance of crim­son threads. It ap­peared to be the only com­mod­ity they had to offer, and I own we never suc­ceeded in dis­cov­er­ing what it was.

The square in front of the prin­ci­pal church was the cen­tre of at­trac­tion for us. On one side the ground was cov­ered with a fine dis­play of na­tive ware. Jars, and plates, and pots, and vases, in the greens and yel­lows and browns that look so tempt­ing and are so cheap. The touch of ver­mil­ion, ar­tis­ti­cally so valu­able to the busy scene, was given by the huge sacks bulging with scar­let and or­ange sweet pep­pers that form such an im­por­tant part of Ma­jor­can food.

Two maimed beg­gars, the first we had seen in the is­land, were hob­bling about reap­ing a har­vest; and, raised on a lit­tle plat­form, a trav­el­ling den­tist was ex­tract­ing ju­ve­nile teeth free; to the sat­is­fac­tion of cer­tain thrifty par­ents, and to the vis­i­ble dis­tress of their off­spring.

Just below the square was the cat­tle-mar­ket; and on its out­skirts we saw, for the first time, a peas­ant clad in the na­tive male dress that un­for­tu­nately has be­come so rare. The jolly old fel­low wore the ex­tremely baggy blue cot­ton pan­taloons, the short black jacket, and wide-brimmed hat that make up so dis­tinc­tive a cos­tume.

A threat­ened shower and an ac­tual thirst gave ex­cuse for seek­ing refuge in a cafe. Most of those we glanced into were crowded with peas­ants, and we hes­i­tated about forc­ing our way in. Find­ing at last one that looked more ex­clu­sive , we en­tered and seated our­selves at one of the lit­tle ta­bles set under the over­hang­ing tis­sue-paper dec­o­ra­tions.

The Boy and I wanted wine, the Man chose co­gnac. The ac­tive waiter quickly served us with huge tum­blers of red wine set in saucers; and plac­ing be­fore the Man a bot­tle of brandy in which were im­mersed spiky herbs, left him to help him­self. The wine was rich and fruity, the liqueur the Man de­clared de­li­cious; and while the rain, which was now falling in earnest, pat­tered down, we sipped and watched the pass­ing life of the street.

Just across the way, at the side en­trance to a flour­ish­ing baker's shop, two women were fry­ing dough-nuts in a big pan of boil­ing oil. The elder woman, scrap­ing a seg­ment of bat­ter from the full basin at her elbow, deftly twisted it round her fin­ger, then threw it into the oil, from which a minute later her as­sis­tant lifted it out with a long-han­dled spoon, trans­formed into a crisp golden ring.

The shower had ceased, the sun was again shin­ing out, and there was much to see; so we paid for our drinks and de­parted.

“Fourpence!” said the Man, as he pock­eted his change. “A penny each for the wine and twopence for the liqueur! It's enough to drive one to drink!”

The one draw­back to the com­plete en­joy­ment of the fair was the mud. The pre­vi­ous night had been wet, and the streets were inches deep in it. To walk about in mud three inches deep is fa­tigu­ing, so we de­cided to take the train that was due to leave Inca at one o'clock, in­stead of wait­ing for that leav­ing at four.

It was a mer­ci­ful for­tune that guided us, for the one o'clock train took three hours to cover its twenty miles. Yet the scenery, with its grey-green olive plan­ta­tions set against a back­ground of beau­ti­ful moun­tains and en­livened with quaintly at­tired olive-gath­er­ers, was so fine that we did not tire of feast­ing our eyes upon it..

Our com­pan­ions on the re­turn jour­ney were mainly men – Palma mer­chants prob­a­bly, who had vis­ited the fair as buy­ers and were anx­ious to re­turn with the great­est pos­si­ble ex­pe­di­tion.

When those who were so ad­ven­tur­ous as to wait until the later train would get back to town, or whether they ever reached it at all, his­tory does not re­late.