2 EARLY NAMES. 



to refer to it under the name of Menuthias ; * and Pliny writes 

 about an island which, in the opinion of many authors, could 

 hardly be any other than Madagascar, under the name of 

 Ceme.\ And it has been supposed to be obscurely indicated 

 in the book Be Mundo ascribed to Aristotle, under the name 

 of Phanlalon. Some other names are also given in early 

 writers; thus, in a quaint old book published in 1609 by 

 Hieronymus Megiserus, entitled Beschreibung der Mechtigen 

 und Weitberkiimbten Insul Madagascar (Altenbourg in Meis- 

 sen), it is stated that Arrian calls it Menutheseas, Stephanus 

 Byzantinus Menuthis, and Diodorus Siculus Ianiboli. Tharetus 

 is also quoted as saying that it was called Pacras on account 

 of the many tortoises found there; afterwards Albargra, 

 then Manutia-Alphil, and then Magadascar, a corruption of 

 the name of Magadoxo, on the mainland of Africa, whose 

 king is said to have invaded the island. Finally, this word 

 was changed to Madagascar. So runs the account, some of the 

 particulars of which are probably not very reliable, although 

 they may possess a basis of fact.+ 



Madagascar is mentioned by several of the Arabian writers, 

 being known to them also by various names, as Serandah and 

 Chebona ; and by the geographers Edrisi and Abulfeda (twelfth 

 and thirteenth centuries), under the strangely different titles of 

 Phelon (or Phenbalon), Quairibalon (or Chambalon),%a?«^ (also 

 variously spelt), and Gezirat al-Komr or " Island of the Moon." 



* "Hide de processo promontorio hodie Mozambique adjacet ab aestivo ortu 

 insula nomine Menuthias ; cujus positio 85 Austral 12.0" (lib. 4, cap. 9). 



t " Contra Sinum Persieum Cerne, nominetur insula adversa iEthiopia;, cujus 

 neque maguitudo, neque intervallum a continente constat, iEthiopias tantum 

 populos habere traditur" (lib. vi. cap. 31). The bishop appointed to Mada- 

 gascar four years ago has adopted this name Cern6 as that of his see on his 

 official seal. 



J Since writing the above, I have referred to the original texts of some of the 

 classical authors mentioned by the old German writer, as well as to his own 

 book ; and also to a learned French author, Gossellin, who, in his work entitled 

 RicUerches sur la Qiographie Systimatique et Positive des Anciens (4 vols. Paris 

 1813), disputes the opinion of earlier writers that Madagascar was mentioned by 

 classical authors under the names of Cerne' and Menuthias (see torn. i. -pp. 80 

 •9I-193)- With regard to the former of these names, I think his opinion is 

 correct, but I am not so sure about the second. Gossellin maintains that Menu- 

 thias was the name of a very small island in the estuary of one of the ereat 

 rivers on the East African coast. 



