i84 ■ AXDRIANS. 



for labour has been impressed upon the public mind, so 

 that even the highest officers felt constrained to commence 

 making some small payment for work which hitherto they 

 had always claimed as having a right to demand. 



The third class of Malagasy society is that of the Andrians or 

 nobles. These again are divided into six classes or clans, some 

 of which are descended from different chieftains of Imerina, 

 formerly indej^endent sovereigns, but whose dominions were 

 gradually alisorbed by the ancestors of the present reigning 

 family. Their descendants, however, have been allowed to 

 retain many of the privileges of their descent, being saluted 

 in different terms to the commoners, and having a right to 

 construct a different kuid of tomb from that of the people 

 generally, and some of them having the distinction of carry- 

 ing the scarlet umbrella, the mark of royalty. Malagasy 

 nobility, therefore, is strictly a matter of descent, and not of 

 creation, nor has it ever been the custom to confer such privi- 

 leges an Andrian possesses upon any one of a lower rank. 

 The present Prime Minister is not an Andrian, although his 

 family has been a privileged one and has possessed great wealth 

 and influence for several generations past. It must not be 

 supposed, however, that the great majority of these so-called 

 nobles are marked off in any distinct way from the Hovas or 

 commoners. Many indeed are very poor, so that it is almost a 

 proverb to say, " As poor as an Andrian;" and there is generally 

 little to distinguish them from others, except, perhaps, a some- 

 what more polite behaviour. In certain villages almost the 

 whole population except the slaves are Andrians. A kind of 

 non-hereditary nobility has arisen since the time of Ead^ma I. 

 in the giving of " honours " or vdninahitra to military and 

 (government officers. This rank is reckoned by numbers; the 

 common soldiers having one honour, and so on up the various 

 grades, the highest being sixteen. Of these last, however, there 

 are only three or four favoured individuals ; but there are 

 many officers of fifteen honours, and a stiU larger number of 

 fourteen, and so the number of holders goes on increasing down 

 to the lower ranks. 



There is nothing in Madagascar like the Hindoo caste, 

 except in some of the marriage restrictions. Thus, most of 



