92 
MADAGASCAR 
being a proverbial saying in Madagascar. A certain air of 
distinction in personal intercourse is peculiar to them. 
They are indebted for their rank to birth alone, but, on 
the other hand, there exists a kind of military nobility 
independent of birth, whose rank is indicated by numbers. 
When Radama I. commenced the organisation of an 
army after the European pattern, different grades of 
honour were instituted in the Hova army. They went 
up to the “sixteenth grade”, the highest of all, but this 
was conferred only on a few. 
The separation of the classes also influences marriage. 
Among the Hova, who like to contract marriages with 
relatives and seldom marry outside their clan, unions 
between nobles and citizens or between citizens and 
slaves never take place. 
The course of politics during the present century 
presented a noteworthy spectacle, in that even the 
Malayan element made an important start in working 
out more highly developed political institutions, and in 
setting up a monarchy of a peculiar character. The 
Negro element was subject to rulers whose sphere of 
power never extended far, although up to the beginning 
of this century there were a few powerful rulers of 
considerable influence in Sakalava-land. Later on took 
place a splitting up into numerous small principalities, 
whose want of unity necessarily led to weakness. On the 
east coast European adventurers have repeatedly worked 
themselves up to supreme power. 
At the commencement of this century the energetic 
Radama I. began to raise up a royal power which secur¬ 
ed the rule over a large part of the island to the Hova. 
The Hova could rule, for he knew how to obey. Intel¬ 
lectual superiority, the introduction of European arms and, 
lastly, a subtlety in diplomacy which is not to be under¬ 
valued, secured the existence of the Hova kingdom till 
quite recently. Even the powerful Sakalava tribes were 
