VII.] THE OCEANIC MONGOLS. 255 



Except in respect of this high cranial capacity, the measure- 

 ments of three Malagasy skulls in the Cambridge University 

 Anatomical Museum studied by Mr W. L. H. Duckworth 1 , corre- 

 spond fairly well with these descriptions. Thus the cephalic index 

 of the reputed Betsimisaraka (Negroid) and that of the Betsileo 

 (Negro) are respectively 71 and 72-4, while that of the Hova is 

 82-1 ; the first two, therefore, are long-headed, the third round- 

 headed, as we should expect. But the cubic capacity of the Hova 

 (presumably Mongoloid) is only 1315 as compared 



X lie JD 1 2. C rv 



with 1450 and 1480 of two others, presumably Element from 

 African Negroes. Mr Duckworth discusses the 

 question whether the black element in Madagascar is of African or 

 Oceanic (Melanesian-Papuan) origin, about which much diversity 

 of opinion still prevails, and on the evidence of the few cranial 

 specimens available he decides in favour of the African. How 

 the advocates of the Oceanic view proposed to bring Mela- 

 nesians from the Pacific Ocean to Madagascar, at least after the 

 subsidence of the Indo-African Continent, was never made quite 

 clear. 



Despite the low cubic capacity of Mr Duckworth's Hova, the 

 mental powers of these, and indeed of the Malagasy 

 generally, are far from despicable. Before the Qualities of the 

 French occupation the London Church Missionary Mala & as y- 

 Society had succeeded in disseminating Christian principles and 

 even some degree of culture among considerable numbers both in 

 the Hova capital and surrounding districts. The 

 local press had been kept going by native com- Spread of 



Christianity. 



positors, who had issued quite an extensive literature 

 both in Malagasy and English. Agricultural and industrial 

 methods had been improved, some engineering works attempted, 

 and the Hova craftsmen had learnt to build but not to complete 

 houses in the European style, because, although they could master 

 European processes, they could not, Christians though they were, 



were unmistakably of the Asiatic type " (Round the Black Man's Garden, 

 1893, p. 143). But even amongst the Hovas a strain of black blood is 

 betrayed in the generally rather thick lips, and in the lower classes wavy hair 

 and dark skin. 



1 Jour, Anthrop. Inst. 1897, p. 285 sq. 



