THE ARAB IMMIGRATION INTO SOUTH-EAST MADAGASCAR. 397 
There are one or two points which seem thoroughly to 
corroborate what the lecturer said, though not referring actually 
to Madagascar, but to Arab immigration elsewhere. 
It is a known fact that the Arabs seem to have had the power 
to practise some faculty of immigration, and to have adopted the 
same customs the lecturer spoke of. 
In regard to the custom mentioned of suspected infidelity —* if 
you have been unfaithful, may the crocodiles devour you in the 
water ’—it is a very curious fact, as stated in Flinders Petrie’s 
Tales of Madagascar, that there is a similar tale told; and again, 
with regard to tearing up pieces of paper and throwing them into 
water and drinking it, to this day in Upper Egypt frequented by 
Egyptians you see, in the Temple of Isis, women, who hope to 
become mothers, scraping the dust out of the hollows and putting 
it in water and drinking it. 
The Secrerary (Professor EK. Hutt, LL.D.).—I was struck, on 
looking at the photographs, by the remarkable difference in the 
physiognomy of the Christian natives as compared with those ot 
the Arabic natives—-namely, the very great improvement in the 
type of feature of the former. 
Mr. Martin Roust.—Yes, decidedly—in the appearance of the 
face ; there is a cheerful and benign expression in the faces of the 
Christians. 
I think it is very remarkable that these people should abstain 
not only from eating pork, but also from eating eels and other 
fish. This must have come originally from the Israelites. I did 
not know until I read this, that it was an Arab custom according 
to the Koran (but perhaps some one may confirm this) that they 
were not only to eat no pork, but no fish that had not fins and 
scales. It looks as if the Taifasy were also of Arabic or partially 
of Arabic origin, but coming at an earlier period into the 
country, inasmuch as they do not keep pigs; and that is in 
agreement with another fact that we have read earlier—that 
whereas the Onjatsy are treated in the legend as a tribe already 
there, when these immigrants came from Arabia, the Onjatsy 
themselves possess one of the only two remaining copies of the 
Koran. So there seem to have been Arabian immigrants there 
prior to the arrival of the Taimoro. 
The custom of one set of people in a tribe killing animals for 
the rest is very curious. The lecturer remarked in the course of 
