ee. This fact reconciled me to my isolation
on board, and its attendant awkwardness.

I knew not why I should have chosen to visit the Balearic Islands,
unless for the simple reason that they lie so much aside from the
highways of travel, and are not represented in the journals and
sketch-books of tourists. If any one had asked me what I expected to
see, I should have been obliged to confess my ignorance; for the few dry
geographical details which I possessed were like the chemical analysis
of a liquor wherefrom no one can reconstruct the taste. The _flavor_ of
a land is a thing quite apart from its statistics. There is no special
guide-book for the islands, and the slight notices in the works on Spain
only betray the haste of the authors to get over a field with which they
are unacquainted. But this very circumstance, for me, had grown into a
fascination. One gets tired of studying the bill of fare in advance of
the repast. When the sun and the Spanish coast had set together behind
the placid sea, I went to my berth with the delightful certainty that
the sun of the morrow, and of many days thereafter, would rise upon
scenes and adventures which could not be anticipated.

The distance from Barcelona to Palma is about a hundred and forty miles;
so the morning found us skirting the southwestern extremity of
Majorca,--a barren coast, thrusting low headlands, of gray rock into the
sea, and hills covered with parched and stunted chaparral in the rear.
The twelfth century, in the shape of a crumbling Moorish watch-tower,
alone greeted us. As we advanced eastward into the Bay of Palma,
however, the wild shrubbery melted into plantations of olive, solitary
houses of fishermen nestled in the coves, and finally a village, of
those soft ochre-tints which are a little brighter than the soil,
appeared on the slope of a hill. In front, through the pale morning mist
which still lay upon the sea, I saw the cathedral of Palma, looming
grand and large beside the towers of other churches, and presently,
gliding past a mile or two of country villas and gardens, we entered the
crowded harbor.

Inside the mole there was a multitude of the light craft of the
Mediterranean,--xebecs, feluccas, speronaras, or however they may be
termed,--with here and there a brigantine which had come from beyond the
Pillars of Hercules. Our steamer drew into her berth beside the quay,
and after a very deliberate review by the port physician we were allowed
t