Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/537

 astonishing length, are for the most part extremely felicitous compound forma, describing with graphic terseness the salient features of the locality.

The arrival of the Malayo-Polynesian immigrants must obviously be referred back to a somewhat remote period. When the French settlers first made their appearance on the south-east coust about two hundred and fifty years ago, Madagascar was already occupied by numerous independent states and tribal communities, without any political cohesion with each other or any elements of a common

civilisation except their Malay speech. The original racial or national unity, to which they were indebted for their common language, had long ceased to exist. No ethnical groups in the island were at that time distinguished above the others by any marked superiority of culture, except the small Arab population, belonging to a totally different race from the Malays.

But this Arab element, which had already been introduced in the very first century of the Hegira, was not strong enough to assimilate the indigenous populations, who had been brought earlier under more powerful influences. In the