460 APPENDIX. 



remains entirely enigmatical in what manner and at what period 

 this Malayan population has made its way to Madagascar. Of 

 Sanscrit Avords there is a certain number in the Malagasy lan- 

 guage."* The period at which this migration took place still 

 remains unknown ; but the evidence which tradition aiFords that 

 the vessels of the Polynesian races were formerly much larger 

 than they are at present, and the number of well authenticated 

 instances of long voyages and vast distances being traversed by 

 the natives of Polynesia in recent years, leave little room for 

 doubt as to the means by which they have spread themselves over 

 the widely extended regions which they now occupy. 



But few verbal coincidences have yet been discovered between 

 the Malagasy and the languages of the adjacent coast of Africa. 

 We are not, however, to conclude that no resemblances exist, for 

 we know but little of the languages of the eastern coast of 

 Africa. The few coincidences which have been traced are inte- 

 resting, and throw light upon important events in the past his- 

 tory of the Malagasy. There does not seem to be any resem- 

 blance in verbal form or grammatical structure between the 

 Malagasy and the languages spoken on the eastern coast of Africa 

 to the southward of Delagoa Bay ; but there appears to be a 

 resemblance, amounting to identity, between a number of words 

 used by the Malagasy and the natives of the Mozambique coast 

 and of the adjacent interior; while, with one or two exceptions, 

 no resemblance can be traced to words of corresponding import 

 in Malayan or Polynesian. In Koelle's "Polyglotta Africana " the 

 following words appear, which are almost identical with the same 

 words in Malagasy : — 



* Appendix to Hist, of Madagascar, vol. i. p. 492. 



