RITES AND CEREMONIES. 
91 
as an aggressive system. The influence of the 
Arabs has always been extensive, however, on 
the west, and to this it is probably due that the 
people have embraced the faith of Mohammed in 
considerable numbers. In the early days of 
Rad am a I., the Arab influence at the capital 
was very considerable; and when Europeans 
first arrived in 1818, they found that several of 
the Malagasy had already learned Arabic, and 
Radama I. had some idea of making that lan¬ 
guage the medium of communication between 
his people and the outer world beyond the seas. 
Thus by the timely arrival of the English arti¬ 
sans and teachers with the first English consul, 
at that period Madagascar was in all probability 
saved from becoming a Mohammedan power. 
In February 1863, a remarkable mania broke 
out in the south-west of the island, called the 
imanenjdna , or dancing mania. It gradually 
approached Antananarivo, and in March of the 
same year it became quite common. A kind 
of infection for dancing seized the people, and 
this spread to the remotest villages, and even 
to solitary cottages in the most out-of-the-way 
places in Imerina, to which province, however, 
it was confined. The public mind was greatly 
excited at the time by the acts of Radama II., 
who had placed himself and the country almost 
altogether in the hands of the French. A strong 
