114 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
four chief political divisions of the people—the Hovas; the 
Sakalavas; the Betsileo; and the Betanimena and Betsimi- 
saraka. Their relative numbers are thus estimated:— 
The Hovas.- - - - 750,000 
The Sakalavas, including the Bezano-1 
. A ? , > 1 , 200,000 
zeno and the Antsianaka > 
The Betsileo ------- 1,500,000 
The Betanimena and Betsimisaraka - 1,000,000 
Total - 4,450,000 
This amount of population is evidently less than the 
island has contained at former and not remote periods of its 
history. The embankments spread over large tracts of 
country, now overgrown with grass or brushwood, shew 
that these parts were once regularty-cultivated rice-fields; 
and the scattered ruins of villages, or whole ranges of vil¬ 
lages, now totally deserted, especially in the Betsileo and 
Sakalava countries, mark, though imperfectly, the extent 
to which the country has been depopulated. 
The female sex greatly preponderates, which, as well as 
the diminution of population, may in part be accounted for 
by the fearful waste of life among the men, in their fre¬ 
quent and barbarous wars. The slave-trade, wars, infan¬ 
ticide, trials by ordeal, and the prevalence of certain dis¬ 
eases, may be specified as reasons sufficiently accounting 
for the very limited population of a country capable of 
maintaining at least five times its present number. Still 
the amount of population is sufficient to excite interest 
in their behalf, and give importance to the events by which 
they are affected. 
Madagascar is not inhabited by one single race (presenting 
only minor and provincial differences, yet having a common 
origin, and constituting an extended nation,) but by a num- 
