FLOBA, FAUNA, AND LANGUAGE. 
325 
often instructive, as showing the mind of the 
people before their contact with European 
civilisation and modes of thought. Their na¬ 
tional songs are scarcely worth preserving, how¬ 
ever, as they consist chiefly of repetitions of 
obsequious terms of adulation of the sovereign, 
which are now considered by the natives them¬ 
selves not to be in perfectly good taste. They 
had no form of mythology, or any traditions or 
fables of divinities or gods and goddesses, such 
as are found amongst most heathen people. 
Some of the colloquial expressions we heard 
again and again reminded us of those quaint ideas 
which are common to our humanity, and are found 
embodied in every language—as, for instance, 
Mitsipi-doha-laJca-mitana, “ to kick the head of 
the canoe that crosses the water,” contains the 
same idea as our 4 ‘to speak ill of the bridge that 
carries you over.” Again, Manao-ariary-Zcito- 
ampandriana , “ to make a hundred dollars on his 
bed,” is evidently the embodiment in Malagasy 
of the exact point of our expression, “ to build 
castles in the air ” ; and MitsamboJci-mikimpy , 
“ to leap without winking,” is a simple paraphrase 
of our “ to take a leap in the dark.” These facts 
will doubtless be of interest to the philologist, as 
adding considerably to the indirect evidence of 
one common origin and subsequent divergence of 
speech, which is now the theory generally ac- 
