orridge
can be got almost for the asking, and if one eats bean porridge enough,
one is not hungry. Their other wants are very few, and they are easily
supplied. So that, practically speaking, every one, even the very
poorest, is well off.

Life for the Mallorcan does not consist of making money. He rather goes
to the other extreme, and takes it as meant for doing nothing in, for
chatting, for smoking indifferent cigarettes, for strolling about under
a melodramatic black cloak with crimson plush lining, and for other
enjoyments. He has no marked objection to money when it comes to his
hand, but he will neither stoop nor climb to gather it. Allah has given
him a lovely and fruitful island, with a perfect climate, and a store
of philosophical contentment, and a theory of life called the
_manana_ theory which utterly eliminates hurry. He wisely does not
try to go against these things that Allah has arranged, and
consequently most of his time is spent in rigorous _far niente_.

It is only the women of Mallorca who work when they have got nothing
else to do. In these frequent intervals they whitewash their dwellings
and neighbourhood generally, which gives sanitation and neatness.

Of the only wealthy class in Mallorca she seemed reluctant to speak.
They were converted Jews, locally known as _Chuetas_. I found she
had somehow imbibed a notion that I too was a Jew; but when I
emphatically denied the impeachment, and said that I strongly hated
Jews, she told me about these _Chuetas_.

They are the Christianized lineal descendants of those Spanish Jews who
in the old days disliked the alternative _auto da fe_, and
preferred to 'vert. To-day they are a caste distinct to themselves,
intermarry, and are loathed by all the other natives with a great
loathing, and have no communications with outsiders except upon
business. Needless to say, this last item is a large one, and in
reality accounts for all the others. The Mallorcans are an easy-going
race, and if they get hard cash to-day, repayment is a matter for
_manana_, and therefore unworthy of consideration. And so the
_Chuetas_ have contrived to get the upper hand all through the
country. They might be forgiven for neglecting to toil and spin, for
that is the custom in general favour; but the other idiosyncrasy
rankles, and from noble to _puta_, every soul hates, abhors, and
detests them. A man, an Englishman, who had not entered the island till
middle life, told how he came