The only traditions and remnants of past history come from the HOVAS, who also have been independent, and who having found opportunities of development not possessed by their fellows, have come to the front among the Malagasy tribes. They tell us how their original settlement was in the south-east of the island: when commenced, how developed, lasting how long, they do not know. Results show that here they became a strong people; and swarming off, they began to push their way up into the hills. Evidently they entered the upper plateau at its south-east corner; and while the foremost of the tribe pushed on, other branches gradually springing from it, and now named Betsileo and Ibára, filled in the districts behind. The advanced Hovas seem to have reached Imerina about eight hundred years ago. For perhaps a hundred and twenty years they were on friendly terms with a tribe which they found there, if not actually subject to them. This tribe they call Vazimba. In the present day they talk of them as their ancestors; in the idolatrous days they were deified; and their tombs are still the most sacred objects in the country. Happily the Hova traditions give us the names of seven Vazimba kings. These names are as genuine specimens of Malagasy as the Hova names themselves. The Vazimba tombs are of the shape and structure of the usual Hova tombs, though of rude work and rough stones. So far therefore as we know anything about the Vazimba, they were a true Malagasy people: there is nothing African about them. After a while the Vazimba and the strangers quarrelled. Contests arose and the Vazimba were driven out of the province; “to the south-west” says the story; and that means “into the unknown.” This superiority of the strangers, says tradition, was due to their use of iron. Whether they had iron while on the coast; whether their fathers had brought and retained any knowledge of its use; or whether they had learned it from their Arab friends and neighbours at Mátitánana: whether they had supplied themselves with iron-headed spears during their march up the Betsileo; or had only produced them on arriving in Imerina, from the iron hills of Amóronkáy, it is now impossible to say. But in the assertion that they knew the use of iron, while their opponents had only spears of wood, there is nothing improbable.