and its capital, whether as the home of the Moor, as the abode and settlement of the numerous knightly followers of the royal conqueror, Don Jayme, or as the residence of luxurious merchant princes who made this fair isle their home and the dépôt of their argosies, at the period when the Baleares were in the full highway to the gorgeous East, before Vasco da Gama had discovered the route to the Indies by the Cape of Good Hope.[27] Buildings of surpassing beauty--especially the Lonja, overlooking the harbour, once the exchange, or _bourse_, and place of public meeting of these busy communities, and the style of which is the most exquisite Gothic--attest the former combination of taste and opulence existing amongst them. Amidst the habitations of the lower classes we always found the modern buildings raised upon the broken ruins of Moorish structures; and the substrata of Moorish masonry never having been reduced to any general level, there is an aspect of inequality, a rise and fall in all the lines of the town, from whatever point it be observed, which is most picturesque. Valetta, perhaps, is the only other city whose general appearance is similar in this respect. Decay, however, is speeding on with rapid though stealthy pace, and these remnants of the past must soon disappear. The city is surrounded by fortifications; but the most modern in use--those of Philip II.--though still massive, would be, notwithstanding the show of garrison within, as effete against an enemy as the Saracenic works, now crumbling away, upon which they are built. Although visited by occasional tempests, which gather amongst the highlands and sweep over the island, Majorca enjoys a most luxuriant climate. The sun looks down throughout the year from a heaven of serenest blue. The great heat of the southern summer is tempered by the fresh sea breeze, and the verdant mountain slopes and valleys offer a cool and shady protection from the rays of a powerful sun. The soil of the plains is rich, and, cultivated by the industry of the hardy island race, yields most luxuriant crops of corn and flax, while the orange, olive, and the carob grow in the wildest luxuriance. During the summer there is a great scarcity of water; but the rains of autumn and winter are collected for the irrigation of the land in enormous reservoirs, which contain sufficient water to last throughout the dry season. Each landholder has his fields then flooded in turn, at certain intervals, upon payment of a water-rate. The fertility of the island, coupled with the honesty and industry of the inhabitants, renders living cheap; and beyond the walls of the semi-Spanish capital, extortion, even in the faintest form, is unknown throughout the length and breadth of Majorca.