140 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. CHAP. V. the case, the features exhibit no approach to the negro type. In contemplating the figure and features of the people, espe cially those whose portraits I secured, I found myself in voluntarily speculating on the origin of the different races, and the causes of the aspect and bearing which they exhibited. The style of head shown in the accompanying portrait was confined to the Hovas. I never saw anything approaching to it among the other races, though with similar features; the colour was among the Hovas, in some instances, as dark as that of any on the island. I found myself continually ques tioning in my own mind, whether some of the Hovas were originally black; or if not, whether by intermarriages with darker races, and other causes, they had retained their peculiar style of features but changed their colour, and thus afford additional evidence that the form of feature was more permanent than colour. Sodra, whose portrait, as well as those of the bearers of my palanquin, and the women at the well, together with the woman with the child at her back, in the same engraving with the Hova woman, are all Betsimasaraka inhabitants of the eastern coast. The manner of wearing their hair resembles that of the natives of Quilli- mane, on the Zambesi river, as described by Commodore Owen in a paper published in the second volume of the Transactions of the Geographical Society, but this is a coin cidence too trifling to support any conclusion as to their African origin. With regard to the Hovas, no doubt can be entertained that they are descended from the ancient race from which the Malayan Archipelago and Eastern Polynesia derive their inhabitants. Further remarks on this subject would interfere with the purpose of my narrative, which has been to record what I observed, leaving others to deduce their own conclusions ; and I shall be happy if the portraits I have furnished prove acceptable to any who may be in terested in that important branch of inquiry which relates to the several varieties of the human family.
