Various of the native peoples of Iberia were distinguished by a special instrument or mode of fighting. Strabo says that the Iberians as a general rule employed two lances and a sword. Those of Lusitania were especially adroit in hurling darts. Each of their warriors kept a number of these darts contained within his shield. Upon the head they wore a helmet of a primitive pattern strapped beneath the chin. This helmet, called the _bacula_, protected all the wearer's face, and had a mitred shape, with three red feathers on the crest. Together with these arms, the Lusitanians used a copper-headed lance and the typical form of Celtiberian sword. More singular and celebrated in their mode of fighting were the Balearic islanders, who carried, through persistent exercise, the art of slinging stones and leaden plummets to the utmost limit of perfection. The beaches of these islands, we are told, abounded, then as now, in small, smooth pebbles, "weapons of Nature's own contrivance," rarely suited to the sling.[106] These slings were of three patterns, severally designed for near, far, and middling distances. The lead or stone projectile sometimes weighed a pound. Accordingly--so strenuous was their zeal to be unrivalled in the practice of this arm--even as little children the Baleares went without their dinner, till, with the formidable _funda_ in their hand, they struck the stick their parents planted for them in the soil. Pliny and Polybius, notwithstanding, state that the sling itself was not indigenous in this region, but imported from Ph[oe]nicia. However this may be, the islanders within a little time contributed to swell the power of the Roman legions. [106] _Descripciones de las Islas Pithiusas y Baleares._ Madrid, 1787.