"Ibiça, Majorca, and Minorca are islands belonging to Spain, lying to the east of that country, in the Mediterranean. From them the ancient Romans enlisted into their armies the famous Balearic slingers, who were compelled to strike their meals from the roofs of their houses before they were allowed to eat them." This is what everyone learns by rote at school, and after he leaves it--when the pupil is supposed to have finished his education, a thing at once very easy and very difficult to accomplish,--the islands are never mentioned or dreamt of again during life. Behold us, then, starting for this _terra incognita_ of Majorca,[25] that remote and unfortunate region to which Mr. Murray has never wandered, and of which Bradshaw has never sung. In fact, before sailing we almost began to doubt the propriety of venturing to a place so far beyond the bounds of civilisation as to be beneath the notice of these gentlemen. Although our fears scarcely went so far as to imagine that these islands were among those localities, of which we had read so much in our youth, inhabited by dancing savages with plumes of feathers in their heads, stuck all over with scalping knives and tomahawks, and who prefer human blood to any other beverage, still we did not know to what inconveniences, to what hard-ships, we might be exposed in a place to which we had never heard the slightest allusion made by any one, probably because nothing good could be said of it. However, we were in for it, _Prêt d'accomplir_, as the Earls of Shrewsbury say, and so we were off for the Balearic capital; and we intend to speak most impartially of Palma, not forgetting the apt, though hackneyed quotation, _Palmam qui meruit ferat_. The illustrious steam-ship _El Rey Jayme II_,[26] of 150 tons, a vessel reputed tolerably safe, steamed in a truly Spanish and stately manner out of the harbour. The Mediterranean was like a lake, as indeed it is; and as the hours waned, the western sky blushed down in one vast flaming glory upon the long purple line of the Valencian mountains, which rose in lofty majesty along the retiring coast of the Spanish peninsula, now dimly and indistinctly seen. The day fell softly, as all that is most beautiful must fall. "Soft day, so sweet, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky, The dew shall weep thy fall to-night For thou must die."