The Malagasy people who inhabit the island appear to be a single race, notwithstanding some tradition about “dwarfs.” Nowhere do we find any tribe or clan or race in any secluded corner of the land, (such as we meet with in the hill districts of India, of Sumatra and Borneo), totally different from the inhabitants of the plains or open provinces. Nor do we meet with any portion of the people specially degraded below their fellows as a conquered and despised race. So far as known the people of the entire island are in most respects similar to one another; and sixty years ago they stood more on a common level than they do now. The main differences at present existing between one portion and another are the result of Christian education and of compact, just and settled government. There is undoubtedly one distinction which may be drawn among the Malagasy; they may be divided into the dark and fair tribes. From the first writers on Madagascar have referred to this difference between them. But in the face of important points of agreement I think too much has been made of it. It is well known to residents in India, that low, hot, saline and malarious districts tend to darken the olive complexion; while dry, open, cooler plains, tend to bleach it and render it fair. Now it is the coast tribes of Madagascar, inhabiting the hot, feverish provinces, which have the dark skin: while those which occupy the central plateau with its bracing air, are, in general, fair. Other considerations must be looked to: and I find them in the dialects spoken; and in the course taken by the movements and migration of the tribes as they gradually occupied the island. In regard to these matters several mistakes have been made by various writers. Judging from the movements of the tribes and from their present relations to one another, it seems to me that the Malagasy are divided into three tribes, starting from different centres, and inhabiting separate districts. The BETSIMISARAKA tribe and its offshoots occupy the east coast and its two lower terraces. The SAKALAVAS hold the broad plains of the west coast in all its length, and overlap the upper extremity of the north-east coast. The HOVAS and their branches inhabit the entire central plateau, and the flanks of its southern extremity.