Page:A Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay Language with a Preliminary Dissertation- Dissertation and Grammar, in Two Volumes, Vol. I (IA dli.granth.52714).pdf/293

 been improved by the three centuries of intercourse which they had held with the Arabs, who must even have shown them the way to the Red Sea, for the purpose of the pilgrimage to Mecca,—probably, even instructed them in the use of the mariner's compass. On the other hand, the voyage to the south of the equator, or that to Madagascar, is more direct and with more favourable winds than that to the north of it. The first of these voyages is performed with the north-east,—the last with the south-east monsoon, and trade wind. The return voyage, to the north of the equator, would be as easy as the outward, because the south-west monsoon prevails over the same tract as the north-east. Not so the return voyage to the south of the equator, for not a westerly monsoon but the adverse trade wind prevails over the principal part of it. The Malayan emigrants once in Madagascar, must remain there, for return would be impossible.

A tradition of the Hova, the superior tribe of Madagascar, and the supposed descendants of the original Malayan immi- grants, respecting their origin, is worth notice. I give it on the authority of a communication from the learned Society of the Mauritius, kindly furnished to me through the Colonial Office. The Hovas say that their ancestors reached the island, "by a long and devious sea journey." This could, of course, refer only to a voyage from the eastward; and as there is no country between, it could, necessarily, refer only to a voyage from the Malay islands. A voyage from the coast of Africa, across the comparatively narrow channel which divides it from Madagascar, would have been neither a long nor a devious sea journey. The word Hova may possibly be Malayan. In Malay, the word ubah, or in Javanese owah, means "change," "shift," "alteration." Now, to all Malayan words adopted by the Malagasi, and beginning with a vowel, it prefixes an aspirate; and it invariably cuts off one at the end of a word. By this process, the Javanese word Owah, and the Malagasi Hova, would be almost the same. But whether, after all, the word be Malayan, or have any application to the ruling tribe of Madagascar, is very doubtful. It may, however, be conjectured that the word, if Malayan, may refer to the change produced