The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-05-23
IN THE BALEARIC ISLANDS. CURIOUS THINGS IN fl REM RKA-
 BLE ARCHIPELAGO.
The Customs of Acadia - -COurting Done in Platoons Amuse m ents.

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 Especial Correspondence of the Journal
 and Courier)
 Iveza, Balearic Islands, April 1S- None of our party can tell why we have taken a greater fancy to Iveza-one of the smallest and poorest of the Balearic group-than to any of the richer and more populous islands; but the fact remains that we unani- mously turned to this dirty, poverty stricken little speck in the Mediterrane- an as our chosen headquarters while in- vestigating the rest of the archipelago. We find that all the few travellers who come to these forgotten islands seem possessed of the same unexplainable fancy, Probably it is because ones eye for the picturesque is so completely satisfied here with varied and beauti- full scenery, and because the compara- lively uncivilized island, making no at tempt to initiate modern progress, of fers such wide contrast to accustomed things; and the chief delight in wander ing over the world, you know. lies in seeing what does not exist at home. Iveza is only about twenty-five miles long, by thirteen wide and is covered with steep mountains. enclosing tiny valleys-the latter inconceivably fertile, because of the torrents rushing every where down the hillsides. It contains but one town, it's port and capital, which is also named Iveza, but general ly known hereabouts as La Guided, "the City" Its medaeval walls and r,1y ty,f fnrf3G 3Gpo aIf, @N hillside, overhanging a deep, commodi- ous bay. The> ancient Romans, who long possessed it, called the place Ebusus. In course of centuries and un- der other masters, 1t became Ibiza; and on most European maps Is to-day Ivica. It's population is probably about seven thousand; while that of the whole is- land-which Is really one continuous, struggling village, being divided into many parishes, each with it's church and cluster of houses-does not exceed thirty thousand.
 It is strange that Iviza should be so rarely visited as to have passed almost out of the memory of man, lying, as it does, only sixty miles from the coast of Spain and not much more from Algers almost on the main highway of the sea between the Strait of Gibraltar and the Suez Canal, directly in the track of thousands of steamers that never. call Perhaps it's reputation for insalubrity has something to do with th's extraor- dinary avoidance There is no denying that Iviza town is one of the dirtiest on earth, and 9 very hot bed of sickness While all the rest of the archipelago is as a sanitarium for healthfulness the towns surpassing even Holland for i'm maculate cleanliness Tviza alone is haunted the whole year through by diptheria, scarla tina measles, typhoid, smallpox, yellow fever--indeed every disease peculiar to childhood and to the tropics. The cause Is purely-or should we say impuraly-local, direct ly traceable tb ahounding filth and ab- sence of municipal regulations. All slops and refuse are thrown into the streets and the gutters reek with filth of every variety. Mediterranean tides are very slight, and as a natural conse- quence, the beautiful harbor-choked with decaying garbage dead animals and all manner of abominations-is more odoriferous than was the water front of Havana in the palmiest days of Spanish methods. The town has al- ways been in this condition and the mortality, especially among children,