nd
commercial classes; the lower and agricultural employ a dialect resembling
that of the Catalans.

_Commerce._--Fruit, grain, wine and oil are produced in the islands, and
there is an active trade with Barcelona in fresh fish, including large
quantities of lobsters. Shoemaking is one of the most prosperous
industries. There is not a very active trade direct with foreign countries,
as the principal imports--cotton, leather, petroleum, sugar, coal and
timber--are introduced through Barcelona. The export trade is chiefly with
the Peninsula, France, Italy, Algeria and with Cuba and Porto Rico. Most of
the agricultural products are sent to the Peninsula; wine, figs, marble,
almonds, lemons and rice to Europe and Africa.

_Administration._--The administration of the Balearic Islands differs in no
respect from that of the other Spanish provinces on the mainland. There are
five judicial districts (_partidos judiciales_), named after their chief
towns--Inca, Iviza, Manacor, Palma and Port Mahon.

_History._--Of the origin of the early inhabitants of the Balearic Islands
nothing is certainly known, though Greek and Roman writers refer to the
Boeotian and Rhodian settlements. There are numerous sepulchral and other
monuments, which are generally believed to be of prehistoric origin.
According to general tradition the natives, from whatever quarter derived,
were a strange and savage people till they received some tincture of
civilization from the Carthaginians, who early took possession of the
islands and built themselves cities on their coasts. Of these cities, Port
Mahon, the most important, still retains the name which is derived from the
family of Mago. About twenty-three years after the destruction of Carthage
the Romans accused the islanders of piracy, and sent against them Q.
Caecilius Metellus, who soon reduced them to obedience, settled amongst
them 3000 Roman and Spanish colonists, founded the cities of Palma and
Pollentia (Pollensa), and introduced the cultivation of the olive. Besides
valuable contingents of the celebrated Balearic slingers, the Romans
derived from their new conquest mules (from Minorca), edible snails, sinope
and pitch. Of their occupation numerous traces still exist,--the most
remarkable being the aqueduct at Pollensa. In A.D. 423 the islands were
seized by the Vandals and in 798 by the Moors. They became a separate
Moorish kingdom in 1009, which, becoming extremely obnoxious for piracy,
was the o