Their excesses produced a contagious and fatal distemper, whose ravages, baffling the skill of the best physicians, completed the havoc of the sword, and the army became so reduced in numbers and efficiency that operations were suspended until reinforcements could be obtained. Fourteen months in all were required for the subjugation of the island. The native population was enslaved, and the fruits of conquest were equitably apportioned among the victors. The conquered territory, especially exempted from the burden of taxation, became the property of those by whose valor it had been acquired; and Majorca passed forever from the jurisdiction of the Successors of Mohammed. Its favorable situation and delightful climate attracted many colonists from the kingdoms of Southern Europe, and before many years the losses in population it had sustained by war were repaired; the preponderance of Moorish characteristics gradually disappeared; and a quarter of a century had not elapsed before Majorca, in ignorance and orthodoxy, could challenge competition with the most bigoted state in Christendom. The island was erected into a fief of the crown, and twelve years after its occupation Minorca and Ivica, profiting by the example of their more powerful neighbor, yielded, after a show of resistance, to the fame and influence of the King of Aragon. The conquest of the Balearic Isles, preceding that of Valencia--of which, indeed, it was the necessary prelude, when their dangerous proximity to the African coast is considered,--was the first and one of the most brilliant of the many exploits which reflected renown upon the career of Jaime el Conquistador.