from being so
damp that clothes mildewed while they were being worn. There was no way
of getting proper food either. They had to eat the most indigestible
things. There were five sorts of meat certainly, but these were pig,
pork, bacon, ham and pickled pork. This was all cooked in dripping,
pork-dripping, of course, or in rancid oil. Still more than this, the
natives refused, not only to serve the unfortunate travellers, but
to sell them the actual necessaries of life. The fact was, they had
scandalized the Majorcan people. All Majorca was indignant because
Solange, who at that time was nine years old, roamed about the mountains
_disguised as a man_. Added to this, when the horn sounded which called
people to their devotions in the churches, these strange inhabitants
of the old Valdemosa monastery never took any more notice than pagans.
People kept clear of them. Chopin suffered with the cold, the cooking
made him sick, and he used to have fits of terror in the cloisters. They
had to leave hastily. The only steamboat from the island was used to
transport the pigs which are the pride and wealth of Majorca. People
were only taken as an extra. It was, therefore, in the company of these
squealing, ill-smelling creatures that the invalid crossed the water.
When he arrived at Barcelona, he looked like a spectre and was spitting
blood. George Sand was quite right in saying that this journey was an
"awful fiasco."

Art and literature did not gain much either by this expedition. George
Sand finished her novel entitled _Spiridion_ at Valdemosa. She had
commenced it before starting for Spain. In a volume on _Un hiver a
Majorque_ she gave some fine descriptions, and also a harsh accusation
of the monks, whom she held responsible for all the mishaps of the
Sand caravan. She considered that the Majorcans had been brutalized and
fanaticized, thanks to their influence. As to Chopin, he was scarcely in
a state to derive any benefit from such a journey, and he certainly did
not get any. He did not thoroughly appreciate the beauties of nature,
particularly of Majorcan nature. In a letter to one of his friends he
gives the following description of their habitation:--

"Between rocks and sea, in a great deserted monastery, in a cell, the
doors of which are bigger than the carriage entrances to the houses in
Paris, you can imagine me, without white gloves, and no curl in my hair,
as pale as usual. My cell is the shape of a large-sized bier