o land. I found a porter, Arab in everything but costume, and followed
him through the water-gate into the half-awake city. My destination was
the Inn of the Four Nations, where I was cordially received, and
afterwards roundly swindled, by a French host. My first demand was for a
native attendant, not so much from any need of guide as simply to
become more familiar with the people through him; but I was told that
no such serviceable spirit was to be had in the place. Strangers are so
rare that a class of people who live upon them has not yet been created.

"But how shall I find the Palace of the Government, or the monastery of
San Domingo, or anything else?" I asked.

"O, we will give you directions, so that you cannot miss them," said the
host; but he laid before me such a confusion of right turnings and left
turnings, ups and downs, that I became speedily bewildered, and set
forth, determined to let the "spirit in my feet" guide me. A
labyrinthine place is Palma, and my first walks through the city were so
many games of chance. The streets are very narrow, changing their
direction, it seemed to me, at every tenth step; and whatever landmark
one may select at the start is soon shut from view by the high, dark
houses. At first, I was quite astray, but little by little I regained
the lost points of the compass.

After having had the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans,
Vandals, and Saracens as masters, Majorca was first made Spanish by King
Jaime of Aragon, the Conquistador, in the year 1235. For a century after
the conquest it was an independent kingdom, and one of its kings was
slain by the English bowmen at the battle of Crecy. The Spanish element
has absorbed, but not yet entirely obliterated, the characteristics of
the earlier races who inhabited the island. Were ethnology a more
positively developed science, we might divide and classify this confused
inheritance of character; as it is, we vaguely feel the presence of
something quaint, antique, and unusual, in walking the streets of Palma,
and mingling with the inhabitants. The traces of Moorish occupation are
still noticeable everywhere. Although the Saracenic architecture no
longer exists in its original forms, its details may be detected in
portals, court-yards, and balconies, in almost every street. The
conquerors endeavored to remodel the city, but in doing so they
preserved the very spirit which they sought to destroy.

My wanderings, after all, were