2 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
it is peopled, and the peculiar characteristics by which 
these are distinguished, have been already given. To 
these have been added, accounts of their domestic man¬ 
ners, their civil relations and social condition, their occu¬ 
pations and amusements, their national observances and 
customs, their government, mythology, and superstitions, 
as these have been found to exist among them during the 
period that has elapsed since the year 1818 , when the 
first Protestant Missionaries entered the country. 
There is no reason for supposing that prior to this date 
the changes in native society had been either frequent or 
extensive. The settlements which the nations of Europe 
have, at different times, formed on the coast of Mada¬ 
gascar, have all been of brief duration, and their tendency 
to produce any change of character and habits among 
the aborigines, exceedingly feeble and circumscribed. 
The settlement of the pirates on the island in the seven¬ 
teenth century, and the intercourse of the natives with 
the Moors and the Arabs, who appear from a very early 
period to have visited their coasts, and to have formed 
establishments on shore for the purposes of trade, have 
probably effected the greatest changes to which they have 
been subject since the discovery of the island. The in¬ 
fluence of these changes, however, does not seem to have 
extended beyond the immediate localities in which they 
occurred, unless to those sources we ascribe the practice 
of divination, the calculation of destinies, and the rite of 
circumcision. The races inhabiting the interior, the Hovas, 
the Betsileo, the Antsianaka, furnish no evidence of any 
other change than would naturally result from the supre¬ 
macy or subordination of the several tribes, as this might 
be produced by the character and talents of their respective 
rulers. 
