NATURE 



365 



THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 1880 



MADAGASCAR 



The Great African Island. Chapters on Madagascar. 

 By the Rev. James Sibrec, Jun., F.R.G.S., of the 

 London Missionary Society. (London : Triibner and 

 Co., 1880.) 



MR. SIBREE'S book is described on the title-page 

 as a popular account of recent researches in the 

 physical geography, geology, and exploration of the 

 country, and its natural history and botany ; and in its 

 origin and divisions, customs and language, superstitions, 

 folk-lore, and religious beliefs and practices of the different 

 tribes. Together with illustrations of scripture and early 

 church history, from native statists and missionary expe- 

 rience. The book commences with an interesting summary 

 of ancient notices and accounts of the island of Mada- 

 gascar, with a continuation of the history of its discovery 

 and exploration down to the present time. The author 

 identifies Madagascar, as has been done by some former 

 •writers, with Menuthias of Ptolemy, but there seems little 

 doubt that Menuthias, which is described in the " Periplus 

 Maris Erythrseij" is, as considered by Bunsen, Karl 

 Miiller, and others, the island of Zanzibar. The author 

 admits in a note that there is some doubt about the 

 matter. In his account of the early Arab names of the 

 island he is not quite clear. The Arabian voyagers 

 named the island, the home of the roc (yEpyornis), the 

 Island of the Moon, possibly from the neighbourhood of 

 the Mountains of the Moon. They wrote the name either 

 Kamar or Komr, which latter name survives in the 

 modern title of the small outlying group, the Comoro 

 Islands, which the Arabs called Komair or the lesser 

 Komr. The name, as applied to the main island, survived 

 until the arrival of the Portuguese, for on one of the 

 oldest maps, the Charta Marina Portugalensium, of the 

 first decade of the sixteenth century, the name Komortina 

 occurs for the island in addition to those of Madagascar 

 and San Lourenco. 



The author attributes the discovery of the east coast of 

 Madagascar to Don Francisco de Almeida in 1506, 

 whereas Antao Goncalves is given by Peschel as the dis- 

 coverer and also as the giver of the name San Lourenco, 

 which is attributed by the author to Joao Gomez d'Abreu. 

 It seems, however, probable that a still earlier voyager 

 may have discovered the east coast of the island, a certain 

 Diogo Dias, commander of a ship of Cabral's fleet, and 

 brother of Bartholomew Dias. 



The best map of Madagascar is that published last 

 year by the late Rev. Dr. Mullens, which is partly based 

 on M. Grandidier's sketch-map, published in 1871. The 

 island is nearly 1,000 miles long and 350 miles broad at 

 its greatest extent, and being the third island in size in the 

 world, is nearly four times as large as England and Wale-. 

 It consists of an elevated interior region from 3,000 to 5,000 

 feet in elevation, and a comparatively level surrounding 

 country raised from 400 to 500 feet above sea-level, ex- 

 tending also over a vast area to the west and south, into 

 which region the more elevated land does not extend. All 

 around the coast is a belt of virgin forest with an average 

 breadth of from fifteen to twenty miles, much of which is 

 Vol. xxi. — No. 538 



still unexplored. A good deal of the elevated interior is 

 bare and somewhat dreary-looking. " The long rolling 

 moor-like hills are only covered with a coarse grass, which 

 becomes very brown and dry towards the end of the 

 seven months' rainy season." The largest river is 300 

 miles long, and could be ascended by steamers of light 

 draught for about ninety miles. The central plateau con- 

 sists of primary and igneous rocks, and is plainly, as 

 might have been foretold from the nature of the fauna of 

 the island, of great antiquity. There are secondary and 

 recent deposits on the lower region, and in the latter M. 

 Grandidier discovered the fossil remains of a hippo- 

 potamus. With the hippopotamus occur the bones of 

 JEpyornis maximus, the gigantic fossil eggs of which 

 probably gave rise to the fabulous stories of the roc. The 

 bones of two other species of yEpyornis have now been 

 discovered, one was as big as a cassowary, the other only 

 as large as a bustard. 



To naturalists accustomed to think of Madagascar as 

 full of the most interesting of animals, it seems strange to 

 learn that "a stranger crossing the forest is always struck 

 with the general stillness of the woods and apparent 

 scarcity of birds seen on the route ; " but after all, stillness 

 is more or less characteristic of all forests. The lemurs, 

 at all events, make themselves heard. " In travelling 

 from the coast to the elevated plateaux of the interior one 

 is sure frequently to hear their loud wailing cries, which 

 sometimes make the woods resound for some minutes 

 together and have a most startling effect when heard for 

 the first time." One lemur {L. cat/a) is not arboreal like 

 the remainder, but lives amongst the rock, having feet 

 specially modified to suit this kind of existence. The 

 natives have a superstitious dread of the Aye-aye 

 (Cheiromys), believing that a person who kills one will 

 die within a year. The hedgehogs (Centetida?), of which 

 there are five genera and nine species in the island, are 

 used as food, having much the taste of pork. They seem 

 to be very abundant in the woods, in low scattered brush- 

 wood. "We frequently met with three or four varieties 

 whilst rambling in the outskirts of the woods.'' They do 

 not mil themselves up into a ball like'our hedgehogs, but 

 put their head between their fore-paws when in attitude 

 of defence. 



We must pass over the further account of the fauna 

 and flora, and turn to the later and more important por- 

 tion of the work which treats of the ethnology of the 

 island, and which is especially valuable. A part of it 

 has already been published in the Proceedings of the 

 Anthropological Institute and of the Folk-Lore Society, 

 as well as in Nature. The population of Madagascar 

 is a very mixed one, and the exact history of its de- 

 velopment is extremely difficult to trace. There are, 

 possibly, traces still remaining of an aboriginal stock, 

 that is to say, of races which existed in the island 

 before later African colonisation and very long before the 

 Malayan incursion. There are numerous indications of 

 the occupation of the country now held by the Hovas, 

 which are the race of the island which at present ex- 

 hibit the purest Malay blood, by an earlier people called 

 Vazimba. Superstition unfortunately prevents the open- 

 ing of the graves of this extinct race. They are said to 

 have been ignorant of the use of iron, and to have been 

 of low stature. There are also vague accounts of another 



