Talking with the people in the evening, we found we were in one of the districts where the Arab influence must have been very strong in former times. They are called Zafin Ibrahim (descendants of Abraham), and told us they were connected with the Jews. There is no doubt, however, that the Arabs had anciently an important settlement here, and to some extent taught the use of Arabic letters and literature; but being isolated from their fellow-countrymen and co-religionists, they gradually became absorbed in the native population. It is probable that many of the chiefs of the south-east tribes are of Arab descent, and so are often lighter in colour than the mass of the people. An intelligent young man gave me a paper containing all the Arabic characters and many of the syllabic sounds, with their equivalents in Malagasy. He had, about six years previously, copied out for M. A. Grandidier, who was then exploring the coasts of Madagascar, a number of extracts from native Arabic books of prayers, genealogies, and sorcery. This young man’s father, then dead, was one of the _ombiàsy_ or diviners, and his books of charms and incantations, being supposed to be connected with idolatry, were destroyed at the time of the burning of the idols in 1869. A few years after our journey, two of the Bétsiléo missionaries, when making an evangelistic tour among the south-east tribes, obtained some pages of manuscript from this neighbourhood. These were apparently written in Arabic; and on being submitted to an expert in that language, were pronounced to be extracts from the Koran, evidently copied by someone who did not know Arabic, and so were full of errors; these quotations were no doubt used as charms and invocations. (I may here notice that, very recently, copies of the Malagasy scriptures have been boiled by the native diviners, and the water sold as a very powerful charm!) [Sidenote: SEA-BIRDS] Being near the sea, we had opportunities of seeing many birds which are oceanic in their distribution, among which are the frigate-birds (one species), and the tropic-birds (two species). The former are true pirates, living almost in dependence upon other fishing birds, whom they force, when these are weaker than themselves, to give up the fish they have taken. But they do also fish for themselves, darting down upon the surface of the water. The white tropic-bird is also an expert fisher, plunging sometimes to a great depth after its prey. They remain all night on their nest, leaving it at sunrise to fish in the open sea. After heavy storms the frigate-bird is occasionally seen quite in the interior, being apparently driven inwards by the violence of the wind.