VI 
PREFACE 
is inserted in this volume in homage to the great services 
he has rendered to the investigation of Madagascar. 
While the manuscript was in the press, there appeared 
the valuable contributions by the German traveller 
Dr. Voltzkow on the hitherto imperfectly known islands 
of Juan de Nova and Aldabra. 
It has been considered desirable that the islands lying 
in the west of the Indian Ocean towards Australia should 
also be incorporated in this work. I have not visited 
these islands, but we possess sufficient information about 
them from recent German, French, and English expeditions, 
and of this I have made use. 
The illustrations are partly from photographs taken by 
myself. A number of the pictures of Madagascar, many of 
which have indeed been published in another form, were 
borrowed by me from the Revue generale des Sciences”, 
which not long ago published as a special number an 
excellent paper entitled “ Ce qu’il faut connaitre de 
Madagascar”. The pictures of the Seychelles are new, 
and for them I am indebted to the great kindness of 
Dr. A. Brauer, who took very successful photographs on 
the spot and forwarded plates to me to make use of. 
Other illustrations, admirably executed by Dr. Voltzkow, 
have also been turned to account. 
C. Keller. 
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE 
There is no book in existence which presents so complete and trustworthy 
an account of Madagascar, the Mascarenes and the smaller islands of the Ocean 
to the East and South East of Africa as this work of Professor Keller. To the 
scientific thoroughness and accuracy of the German professor he adds the vividness 
and realism due to personal travel and investigation. His theories of the ethno¬ 
logical history of Madagascar appear to me to be unanswerable, although they 
differ from those of most writers on the subject, and even in some respect from 
those of Grandidier, with whom, however, he is generally in accord. 
The geologist, the botanist, the zoologist, the meteorologist, the ethnologist, and 
the historian will all find new and interesting matter in the book, treated in an 
eminently rational and scientific tone, and embellished with skilfully selected 
illustrations. 
H. A. Nesbitt. 
