As far as is known none of the tribes in Madagascar were ever cannibals. The Hovas in particular would have been the last to dream of _hòman’ òlona_, cannibalism in any form. They regard it as the most hideous and revolting practice conceivable. Their great respect for the dead, the care they take of the corpse, and the fine family tombs they build, all point in the opposite direction. The horrors of cannibalism, as known in New Guinea and on the Congo, were utterly unknown in Madagascar. But this, notwithstanding, all the tribes in the island--including the Hovas, the ablest and most advanced in civilization of them all, and until the advent of the French the dominant tribe--had sunk to a most revolting state of moral degradation. This is still the condition of the majority of the other tribes. Most of the crimes in that long black list, which the Apostle Paul brings against the Corinthians, might have been brought against the tribes in Madagascar, even against the Hovas, with the sentence, ‘Such were some of you.’ So that if missionaries had done nothing more for the Malagasy than raise some of those tribes--the Hovas in particular--to a platform of common decency, and inspire them with the desire for higher and better things than they had ever known, it was a work well worth doing. But the Gospel has done much more for the Hovas than this. It has made thousands of them ‘new creatures in Christ Jesus.’ When Christianity was first introduced to Madagascar, and for many years after, the Malagasy might have been said to have been perfectly destitute of spiritual instincts, and hence the reception by them of spiritual mysteries, not to say spiritual truth, was almost impossible. Their moral natures, their spiritual instincts and conscience had almost to be created or recreated. The progress which Christianity made during the fifteen years that the first missionaries were among them, and as the result of their labours, was truly astonishing. Persecution and martyrdom only rooted the faith more firmly in the hearts of the faithful few, and spread it among others. Hundreds were thus led to inquire about that ‘faith’ for which their fellow countrymen and women were prepared to die rather than renounce. Thus by the time the idols were burned in 1869, and the queen, prime minister, and government professed their adhesion to Christianity, a great change had come over the minds of a large number of the people in Central Madagascar with regard to the ‘new religion,’ as also in their attitude towards it. Still, in both respects the change was very superficial, and could hardly have been expected to have been anything else.