buildings, among which are most prominent the magnificent
Cathedral, the elegant Exchange (la lonja), the stately Town-
Hall, and the picturesque Royal Palace (palacio real). Indeed, in
Majorca everything is picturesque,

from the hut of the peasant, who in his most insignificant
buildings has preserved the tradition of the Arabic style, to
the infant clothed in rags and triumphant in his "malproprete
grandiose," as Heine said a propos of the market-women of
Verona. The character of the landscape, whose vegetation is
richer than that of Africa is in general, has quite as much
breadth, calm, and simplicity. It is green Switzerland under
the sky of Calabria, with the solemnity and silence of the
East.

But picturesqueness alone does not make man's happiness, and
Palma seems to have afforded little else. If we may believe
Madame Sand, there was not a single hotel in the town, and the
only accommodation her party could get consisted of two small
rooms, unfurnished rather than furnished, in some wretched place
where travellers are happy to find "a folding-bed, a straw-
bottomed chair, and, as regards food, pepper and garlic a
discretion." Still, however great their discomfort and disgust
might be, they had to do their utmost to hide their feelings;
for, if they had made faces on discovering vermin in their beds
and scorpions in their soup, they would certainly have hurt the
susceptibilities of the natives, and would probably have exposed
themselves to unpleasant consequences. No inhabitable apartments
were to be had in the town itself, but in its neighbourhood a
villa chanced to be vacant, and this our party rented at once.