ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING.* 
Epwarp S. M. PERownk, ESQ., IN THE CHAIR. 
The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed, and the follow- 
ing elections took place :— 
Mempers :—Edmund C. P. Hull, Esq., J.P., Surrey ; Ernest Romney 
Matthews, Esq., C.E., F.G.S., Bridlington. 
The following paper was read by the Author :— 
THE ARAB IMMIGRATION INTO SOUTH-EAST 
MADAGASCAR. By Rev. GrorGcE A. SuHaw, F.Z.S. 
THE SAcrRED Books, CusTOMS, AND TRADITIONS OF THE 
TAIMORO TRIBE. 
\ATHILE all writers on the ethnology of Madagascar are 
fairly in accord as to the origin of the principal 
tribes, the Héva and Beétsiléo, the proximity of Africa has 
always caused an element of uncertainty to creep into the 
mind regarding the source from which the many darker- 
skinned tribes have sprung. Many contend that the coast 
tribes, the Sakalava on the one coast, and the Bétsimisaraka 
on the other, have a decidedly African cast of feature and 
formation of cranium; and this has apparently been borne 
out by measurements and investigations made by Dr. 
Hildebrandt in the somewhat limited tract of country 
through which he travelled. But against this has to be 
put the fact, that the more perfectly the island is explored, 
the more convinced are those who are in a position to give 
an opinion of any value, that the language of the various 
tribes is one and the same, and that the many varieties in 
pronunciation and syntax are simply dialectic, and do not 
represent radically different languages. That an African 
clement is present in the island no one can deny, but it has 
* Monday, 20th May, 1901. 
