Pu-la-wa (Brava, properly Barawa) adjoins
the former, and is also on the sea.
It produces olibanum, myrrh, and
ambergris; and among animals elephants, camels, rhinoceroses, spotted
animals like asses, etc.[1]
It is, however, true that there are traces of a considerable amount of
ancient Arab colonisation on the shores of Madagascar. Arab descent is
ascribed to a class of the people of the province of Matitanana on the
east coast, in lat. 21 deg.-23 deg. south, and the Arabic writing is in use
there. The people of the St. Mary's Isle of our maps off the east coast, in
lat. 17 deg., also call themselves the children of Ibrahim, and the island
Nusi-Ibrahim. And on the north-west coast, at Bambeluka Bay, Captain Owen
found a large Arab population, whose forefathers had been settled there
from time immemorial. The number of tombs here and in Magambo Bay showed
that the Arab population had once been much greater. The government of this
settlement, till conquered by Radama, was vested in three persons: one a
Malagash, the second an Arab, the third as guardian of strangers; a fact
also suggestive of Polo's four sheikhs (Ellis, I. 131; Owen, II. 102,
132. See also Sonnerat, II. 56.) Though the Arabs were in the habit of
navigating to Sofala, in about lat. 20 deg. south, in the time of Mas'udi
(beginning of 10th century), and must have then known Madagascar, there is
no intelligible indication of it in any of their geographies that have been
translated.[2]
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