46 
MADAGASCAR. 
attractive and clever theories and traditions have 
been put forward to account for the phenomenon 
of a Malayan family crossing the troubled and 
uncertain waters of the Indian Ocean in the 
centuries past, and obtaining a home and sov¬ 
ereignty on an island hundreds of miles from 
their original location. The matter may be ex¬ 
plained in this way. In the distant period long 
before the British ascendancy in the East, the 
Indian and China seas were infested by pirates 
and freebooters, who had their homes and fast¬ 
nesses in the rocky islands of the Malayan Archi¬ 
pelago. 
The men were remarkable for their ferocity as 
well as their adventurous spirit, and they struck 
boldly out to sea in their rude vessels in search 
of plunder and slaves. In the hurricanes which 
prevail with fearful energy at fixed seasons in 
those seas, safety for the unfortunate mariner 
who happens to be entrapped within the fatal 
circle of the tempest is in drifting before the 
wind. A fleet of these piratical marauders having 
been caught in one of these storms, is supposed 
to have drifted across the sea, and to have reached 
at length the south-eastern corner of Madagascar. 
At least the first traces of the Hova occupation 
are found there. More than one incursion of the 
strange colonists is considered to have taken place. 
The country at that time was inhabited by the 
