n greet a country acquaintance or a city
friend or sweetheart.

When I found that the ruins of San Domingo had been removed, and a
statue of Isabella II. erected on the Alameda, I began to suspect that
the reign of old things was over in Majorca. A little observation of the
people made this fact more evident. The island costume is no longer
worn by the young men, even in the country; they have passed into a very
comical transition state. Old men, mounted on lean asses or mules, still
enter the gates of Palma, with handkerchiefs tied over their shaven
crowns, and long gray locks falling on their shoulders,--with short,
loose jackets, shawls around the waist, and wide Turkish trousers
gathered at the knee. Their gaunt brown legs are bare, and their feet
protected by rude sandals. Tall, large-boned, and stern of face, they
hint both of Vandal and of Moslem blood. The younger men are of inferior
stature, and nearly all bow-legged. They have turned the flowing
trousers into modern pantaloons, the legs of which are cut like the
old-fashioned _gigot_ sleeve, very big and baggy at the top, and tied
with a drawing-string around the waist. My first impression was, that
the men had got up in a great hurry, and put on their trousers
hinder-end foremost. It would be difficult to invent a costume more
awkward and ungraceful than this.

In the city the young girls wear a large triangular piece of white or
black lace, which covers the hair, and tightly encloses the face, being
fastened under the chin and the ends brought down to a point on the
breast. Their almond-shaped eyes are large and fine, but there is very
little positive beauty among them. Most of the old country-women are
veritable hags, and their appearance is not improved by the
broad-brimmed stove-pipe hats which they wear. Seated astride on their
donkeys, between panniers of produce, they come in daily from the plains
and mountains, and you encounter them on all the roads leading out of
Palma. Few of the people speak any other language than the _Mallorquin_,
a variety of the Catalan, which, from the frequency of the terminations
in _ch_ and _tz_, constantly suggests the old Provencal literature. The
word _vitch_ (son) is both Celtic and Slavonic. Some Arabic terms are
also retained, though fewer, I think, than in Andalusia.

In the afternoon I walked out into the country. The wall, on the land
side, which is very high and massive, is pierced by five guarded gates.
The d