Judging from modern results, I incline to think that the original colonisation was not extensive; that the trade was found not to be remunerative; while navigation so far to the south was found to have special perils; and that the connecting link between Madagascar and Great Malaya was early severed. The population has increased but slowly during these long ages. Even now the Betsimisáraka tribes in their five divisions only just exceed a quarter of a million: the scattered Sákalávas, even in their wide and fertile plains, contentious and ever at feud with one another, cannot exceed half a million. The three Hova divisions are strongest in numbers, in civilisation and resources generally, and yet amount to less than a million and three-quarters altogether. Hitherto the various writers on Madagascar in describing the population have all followed Mr. Ellis’s estimate of forty years ago. That estimate, amounting to 5,500,000, appears to be wholly inapplicable to the present day. It was to a large extent guess work, and included districts which had then scarcely been visited by an Englishman. I speak of the population, as (to a large extent) I saw it; and I estimate it as follows:— POPULATION OF MADAGASCAR. 1. BETSIMISARAKAS, including— 300,000 Sihánakas, 40,000; Tanálas, 20,000; Tankays, 50,000; Ikongos, 20,000 2. SAKALAVAS, North and South 500,000 3. HOVAS and Cognate Tribes:— Imerina and Vonizongo 1,000,000 Imámo and Mandridrano 100,000 Betafo and Vákin ’Ankárat 100,000 Betsileo 300,000 Ibára, &c. 200,000 ————— 1,700,000 ————— TOTAL 2,500,000 The results at present produced show at least three independent movements in the settlement of the island. The Betsimisárakas have lived a quiet life on the east coast, quite independent of the other tribes, and have quietly spread up the hills into the Tanála, the Sihánaka and Ankáy. And they have preserved in simple fashion the rough tongue of their forefathers in Sumatra. Whether the Sakalavas are one people, or have sprung from more than one colony, north and south, we know not. They have had constant wars with their neighbours above the hills, as well as among themselves. A dread of their courage and skill in war has established between them and those neighbours a Noman’s land of fifty or sixty miles in breadth. And their movements and their history seem to have been all along independent of others.