KIM OS. 137 



in the interior of Madagascar, who were called Kimos or 

 Quimos, and who were said to be of very short stature, averag- 

 ing only three feet six inches in height. Of these people 

 there are no such traces accessible to us as there are of the 

 Vazimba; but the accounts given by Commerson, who was 

 a scientific traveller and botanist, and Count de Modave 

 (Governor at Fort Dauphin, 1768-70), are so circumstantial 

 that it is difficult to believe there could be no residuum of 

 fact on which they were founded. 



These dwarfish people are said to have been lighter in 

 colour than the majority of the inhabitants of Madagascar, 

 they had woolly hair, very long arms, while the breasts of the 

 women had hardly any prominence except when nursing their 

 children. They are said to have been very bold in defending 

 their own territory against an invader, using the spear and 

 bow ; they excelled in certain handicrafts, and were of in- 

 genious and active disposition, with pastoral habits. A woman 

 of this tribe was in the possession of de Modave, and is de- 

 scribed both by him and by Commerson, in different accounts, 

 as being about three feet seven inches in height, with the 

 physical characteristics enumerated above. 



The country of this pigmy race is described as being toward 

 the southern centre of the island, on the twenty-second paral- 

 lel of south latitude, and about 1 80 miles north-west from 

 Fort Dauphin. This is a part of the island never yet ex- 

 plored by Europeans, and on the confines of the Bara country. 

 On the whole, one is disposed to conclude that we have here 

 indications of the existence of an aboriginal race of people. 

 Possibly these Ivimos were a race somewhat like the Bush- 

 men of South Africa, who are also short of stature, and of a 

 lighter colour than the tribes surrounding them. 



Besides the foregoing, we hear vague accounts of another 

 strange race of people in the western part of Madagascar. 

 The Eev. W. E. Cousins gives the following particulars of 

 these in the Antananarivo Annual (1875, p. 106) : — "About 

 a week's journey west of the capital is a tribe called the 

 Kalio or Behdsy. They live in a wooded country extending 

 from Mojanga to Mahabo. Their food is honey, eels, and 

 lemurs. The lemurs are caught in traps and fattened. They 



