The roads are excellent, the four principal being those from Alcudia, Manacor, Sóller and Andraitx to the capital. Forty-eight miles of railway were open at the beginning of the 20th century. The main line runs from Palma to Manacor and Alcudia. The telegraphic system is fairly complete, and there is regular steam communication with Barcelona and Alicante. The principal towns include—besides Palma (63,937), Felanitx (11,294) and Manacor (12,408), which are described in separate articles—Andraitx (6516), Inca (7579), Llummayor (8859), Pollensa (8308), Santañy (6692) and Sóller (8026).
MAJORIAN (Julius Valerius Majorianus), emperor of the West from 457 to 461. He had distinguished himself as a general by victories over the Franks and Alemanni, and six months after the deposition of Avitus he was declared emperor by the regent Ricimer. After repelling an attack by the Vandals upon Campania (458) he prepared a large force, composed chiefly of barbarians, to invade Africa, which he previously visited in disguise. Having during his stay in Gaul defeated and concluded an alliance with Theodoric the Visigoth, at the beginning of 460 he crossed the Pyrenees for the purpose of joining the powerful fleet which he had collected at Carthagena. The Vandal king Genseric, however, after all overtures of peace had been rejected, succeeded through the treachery of certain officers in surprising the Roman fleet, most of the ships being either taken or destroyed. Majorian thereupon made peace with Genseric. But his ill-success had destroyed his military reputation; his efforts to put down abuses and improve the condition of the people had roused the hatred of the officials; and Ricimer, jealous of his fame and influence, stirred up the foreign troops against him. A mutiny broke out in Lombardy, and on the 2nd of August 461 Majorian was forced to resign. He died five days afterwards, either of dysentery or by violence. Majorian was the author of a number of remarkable laws, contained in the Theodosian Code. He remitted all arrears of taxes, the collection of which was for the future placed in the hands of the local officials. He revived the institution of defensores, defenders of cities, whose duty it was to protect the poor and inform the emperor of abuses committed in his name. The practice of pulling down the ancient monuments to be used as building material, which was connived at by venal officials, was strictly prohibited. He also passed laws against compulsory ordination and premature vows of celibacy.
See Sidonius Apollinaris, Panegyric of Majorian; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxxvi. (where an outline of the “novels” of Majorian is given); J. B. Bury, Later Roman Empire, bk. iii.
MAJORITY (Fr. majorité; Med. Lat. majoritas; Lat. major, greater), a term signifying the greater number. In legislative and deliberative assemblies it is usual to decide questions by a majority of those present at a meeting and voting. In law, majority is the state of being of full age, which in the United Kingdom is twenty-one years of age. A person attains his majority at twelve o’clock at night of the day preceding his twenty-first birthday (see [Infant]; [Age]).
MAJUBA (properly Amajuba, Zulu for “the hill of doves”), a mountain in northern Natal, part of the Drakensberg range, rising about 7000 ft. above the sea and over 2000 ft. above the level of the surrounding country. It overlooks the pass through the Drakensberg known as Laing’s Nek, is 8 m. S. of the Transvaal border and 18 m. N. of the town of Newcastle. The railway from Durban to Johannesburg skirts the base of the mountain. During the Boer War of 1880-81 Majuba was occupied on the night of the 26th of February 1881 by some 600 British troops under Sir George Pomeroy Colley. On the following morning the hill was stormed by the Boers under Piet Joubert and the British routed, Colley being among the slain.
MAKALAKA, a general designation used by the Bechuana, Matabele and kindred peoples, for conquered or slave tribes. Thus many of the tribes subjugated by the Makololo chief, Sebituane, about 1830 were called Makalaka (see David Livingstone’s Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, London, 1857). By early writers on south-central Africa certain of the inhabitants of Barotseland were styled Makalaka; the name is more frequently used to designate the Makalanga, one of the tribes now classed as Mashonas (q.v.), who were brought into subjection by the Matabele.