At the beginning of the 20th century, Mary Stuart Boyd Stuart visited Mallorca for five months. As a result of this experience, she wrote The Fortunate Isles, published in 1911.
The Manacor Caves are fantastic and wonderful. Those of Artá are stupendous, overwhelming in their gloom and grandeur. Any conception I had ever formed of cavernous magnificence was far exceeded; and to me the Caves of Artá were infinitely more impressive than the Caves of Manacor. When I tried to express this, Amoras said devoutly:
- The Cave of the Dragon is an oratory chapel. This is a cathedral.
Countless glories are concealed in the vast caverns. Stalactites so large that to try to calculate the length of time occupied in their formation makes the brain reel. Statues as complete in detail as though carven by the chisel of a sculptor. Cascades of glistening crystal. The huge crouching figure of a winged Mephistopheles, and in the Hall of the Banners flags – marvels of immobile drapery - that stood out at right angles from the pillar whence they were suspended.
It was in the Hall of the Banners that Amoras, warning us not to follow, disappeared from sight, leaving us in the dark. Then from a height came strange noises designed to strike terror into the breasts of the timid. Then the light of a Roman candle threw into weird effect the great maze of stalactite pillars, cones, and festoons that rose about and above us to unimagined heights.
The Fortunate Isles: Life and Travel in Majorca, Minorca and Iviza, 1911
(Glasgow, Scotland, 1861 – Takapuna, New Zealand, 1937). The British writer and traveller Mary Stuart Boyd combined mystery writing with travel literature. She married Alexander Stuart Boyd, the well-known artist and illustrator of Punch magazine, who illustrated numerous travel books dedicated to New Zealand, Scotland, France and the Balearics. The couple and their only child, Stuart, visited Mallorca in the early 20th century for five months, arriving in October 1909.
As a result of the experience, she wrote The Fortunate Isles, published in 1911. The book was a success when it came out, but it was gradually forgotten after the First World War. The author’s fascination with Balearic culture and the engravings in the book by A. S. Boyd made it one of the most picturesque important 20th century travel books.
On the death of their son at the battlefront during the First World War, the couple moved once and for all to New Zealand, where the writer would found an association of female writers, the League of New Zealand Penwomen.
Artà caves, also known as the Cueva de s'Ermita, were first explored in 1806. The rock formations, columns, stalagmites and stalactites impressed travellers and explorers alike, who went on to write accounts of their outings in travel stories.
Together with Drac Caves (in Manacor), Artà caves are some of the biggest underground cavities. Certain alterations have been made to them so that they can be visited by the public. In the case of Drac Caves, the first such adaptation was made in the second half of the 19th century, with the construction of the imposing entrance stairway. In the early 20th century, the first visits by tourists were recorded, together with early examples of the caves dissemination.
