59 
CHAPTER IY. 
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS, PAST AND PRESENT. 
Although surrounded by a dense cloud of super¬ 
stition and ignorance, there is a marked contrast 
between the manners and customs of the natives 
of Madagascar and those of the inhabitants of 
the neighbouring continent of Africa. There is 
also an utter absence of those fearful atrocities 
which formerly were enacted by the barbarous 
aboriginals of New Zealand and the South Seas; 
and there is nothing, nor, as far as can be 
gathered, has there ever been in the island any¬ 
thing approaching the horrors of the holocausts 
of Dahomey or the “ spear-washing ” of the Kaffir 
tribes. Human life has, on the contrary, been 
always to a great extent respected, and, in the 
darkest days of heathendom, we only hear of 
human sacrifices being offered to a very limited 
extent—by a savage tribe in the south-east 
corner of the country. The terrible persecutions 
and wholesale massacres which disgraced the 
