282 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
or with hair on. Skins of animals of different kinds appear 
to have been universally worn by the several races inhabit¬ 
ing the African continent, from the earliest period of our 
acquaintance with them; and the circumstance of their 
never having been used by the natives of Madagascar, 
although animals whose skins would have been in every 
respect suitable to the purpose have always been numerous 
in the island, seems unfavourable to the opinion that the 
present inhabitants were at first a colony from any part of 
the adjacent continent, while their using so generally cloth 
made from the bark of the rofia or other trees, either 
woven or beaten, furnishes increasing evidence of their 
having emigrated from the Asiatic archipelago, and having 
one common origin with the races now peopling the eastern 
island of the Pacific. 
Cottons, linens, and woollen cloths, of foreign manufac¬ 
ture, Indian or European, have long been used as articles 
of clothing by the natives; and in recent years, dresses made 
in the European form have greatly increased among them. 
The government employ constantly several hundred 
tailors and sempstresses in making up wearing apparel. 
These are all to a certain extent slaves; and their bondage 
and their occupation are alike perpetual, terminating only 
with their lives. The judges and chiefs wear the same 
kind of dress as others in similar circumstances. Rank or 
office is but rarely indicated by dress, with the exception of 
the chief ministers of the sovereign, or the officers of the 
palace; these wear a sort of household uniform, consist¬ 
ing of a frock or surtout-coat of dark blue colour, tastefully 
decorated with black or dark-coloured braid, a cap of the 
same kind of cloth, with a band of gold lace, or a cocked 
hat, and in general trousers of blue ornamented with broad 
gold lace. 
