FOREIGN INTERMIXTURE. 109 



on the south-east coast, it is also found in operation to this 

 very day on the opposite side of the island, the north-west, 

 as will be noticed presently when speaking of the Sakalava 

 tribes. 



Among the Hovas, in the central province of Tmerina, there 

 is probably only a slight foreign (i.e., extra-Malagasy) mixture 

 of blood, although the whitest and most European-like natives 

 are to be found among the upper and well-to-do classes ; and 

 in looking at some of these I have felt strongly inclined to 

 believe that some not very remote ancestor of theirs was not 

 a native Malagasy. Taking the population of Imerina as a 

 whole, there can be no doubt that it is of a more mixed char- 

 acter than is the case in many provinces. For during the 

 first half of the present century, when the Hovas were pur- 

 suing their career of conquest through the central and eastern 

 portions of Madagascar, great numbers of the women and 

 children of the conquered tribes were brought back to the 

 capital and its neighbourhood, where their descendants now 

 form a large proportion of the slave population. It is at the 

 same time quite true that the free people do not intermarry 

 with the slaves, and those free people who may become slaves 

 for debt or other causes (zdza-Hdva) marry among themselves, 

 and not with the slaves proper (andevo). And the Andrians 

 or noble clans (with some strictly defined exceptions) marry 

 from those of their own rank. So that there is a tendency 

 from the habits of the people to keep the original stock of 

 any tribe free from much foreign intermixture, for tribes and 

 families, as a rule, marry among themselves in order to keep 

 landed property together, as well as from a strong clannish 

 feeling. 



The people of the western and northern portions of Mada- 

 gascar, loosely called Sakalavas, have three decided foreign 

 elements mingled with them, or, at least, found among them. 

 First, there are the Arab immigrants just referred to.* The 

 Arabs have probably had intercourse with the country, and 

 numbers of them have settled in it, for many hundred years 

 past, although they seem to have kept themselves distinct to 



* These people are called Salama by the Malagasy ; is this name derived from 

 the salutation salama — Heb. shalom ? 



