CHAPTER VIII
Betsileo—“The Sombre Fringes of the Night”
The glad Dawn sets his fires upon the hills,
Then floods the valley with his golden light,
And, triumphing o’er all the hosts of night,
The waiting world with new-born rapture fills.
L. C. Moulton.
The scene now changes to the province of Betsileo, in the south of the Island, where the work is carried on amongst a backward people, whose territory abuts upon the districts occupied by tribes more benighted still—the Sakalava, the Bara, and the Tanala.
Until quite recently the work in Betsileo was separated from the work in Imerina by a journey in a filanjana (palanquin) occupying from eight to ten days. Now the 264 miles which separate Tananarive from Fianarantsoa are covered in two days in comfortable automobiles, along a magnificent road which has been constructed by the French. For almost the whole of the distance the country is very hilly, the road rising to 4,500 feet above the sea level, and being carried over mountains in a continuous series of curves with easy gradients.
We were travelling in the middle of the Malagasy winter. The mornings were cold and misty, but before long the sun broke out and we enjoyed a changing panorama of hill and mountain, waterfall and river, and far-spreading distant views. Peaks sixty miles away appeared to be quite near. Time after time the road traversed amphitheatres in the mountains, and I was often reminded of stretches of country in the province of Hunan in Central China.
Fianarantsoa is the capital of the Betsileo province, the inhabitants of which are a curly-haired, dark-skinned people of a somewhat low type, except in the large towns where most of the population is Hova. Work is also carried on at outstations amongst the Bara and Tanala tribes in the south. The L. M. S. first sent resident missionaries to settle in Betsileo in 1870, and the Paris Missionary Society and the Norwegian Society are also at work there.
Fianarantsoa is picturesquely situated in a mountainous region. It stands considerably higher than the top of Snowdon, and commands a wonderful view on all sides—of mountains and moorland, forest and river in infinite variety. During our visit, in the early mornings great seas of mist lay in the valleys, but later in the day the whole landscape was flooded with brilliant sunshine.
The work in the Capital itself and at seventy-four outstations is in charge of Mr. Huckett and Mr. Johnson, who have borne the burden and heat of the day for upwards of thirty years, while Miss Hare has been in charge of the Girls’ School for the last seventeen years. The Mission Compound is extensive and contains the Girls’ School, three Mission houses, the Theological College, which was once a hospital, and cottage accommodation for the students at work in the College and the boys from the L. M. S. country stations attending the Boys’ School of the Paris Missionary Society. In Fianarantsoa there were all the evidences of extensive missionary activities and of a successful work. The numerous meetings that were held during our visit were crowded. During our stay the annual gatherings of the Betsileo Isan-Kerin-Taona (yearly meeting) were held.
They were the first gatherings of the kind at which I had been present in Madagascar. As I attended meeting after meeting the impression made upon me as a visitor was that of “fields white unto harvest.” To my unaccustomed eyes the white lambas, which seemed to fill the Churches, suggested the white fields referred to in the Gospels. And then came the thought which gave rise to glad thanksgiving, that in Madagascar the harvest indeed had been plenteous, though the labourers had been few. Then came a vision of the great harvest-home when from the north and south, the east and west of this island men and women, boys and girls would all be gathered into the Kingdom, and those who sowed and those who reaped would rejoice together.
Three meetings stand out in my memory. On the Wednesday there was a representative gathering of the delegates from the L. M. S. and P. M. S. Churches in Antranobiriky Church. M. Couve, of the Paris Society, addressed some burning words to the delegates, which went to their hearts. I spoke of the United Malagasy Church of the future, and rejoiced to find so hearty a response to the idea of union. Next day at the Assembly M. Couve spoke with great earnestness on the duty of self-support, and Mr. Houghton gave an eloquent address on self-government.
The third meeting was a memorable one. It was a united Communion Service held on Thursday afternoon in the Church of the French Protestant Mission. The spacious church was crowded to its utmost limits. The aisles and stairs were thronged with devout worshippers. A native pastor conducted the service. Missionaries and evangelists, pastors and preachers joined with some 800 Christians and the Deputations from the two societies round the table of our Lord. Men and women, brown and white, were all as one in that sacred service of commemoration and consecration. The solemnity of the gathering was emphasised by the thunderstorm which broke over the town while the service was proceeding. The church became dark. The wind howled. The lightning flashed. The thunder rolled. The rain fell. And then came the brilliant sunshine—a prophetic vision of the history of the Church of Christ in Madagascar. Persecution, trouble, and anxiety have beset that Church in the past. Even now there are clouds upon the horizon. But the day is surely coming when the glorious shining of the Sun of Righteousness will flood this great island with light and love, and all who live in it “shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and ... as the stars for ever and ever.”
Mr. Huckett has long carried on a fine piece of work in the Theological Seminary. Here pastors and evangelists receive a three years’ course of training, and there is a two years’ course for catechists and itinerating preachers. Mr. Huckett also superintends the boys and youths from the country mission stations, who come up to Fianarantsoa to complete their education, living in the cottages above referred to, which are supported by the Glasgow Foundry Boys’ Religious Association. Another branch of Mr. Huckett’s manifold labours is the secretaryship of the local agency of the British and Foreign Bible Society. From the Bible and Book Room in the Compound the Scriptures are distributed to the whole of the South of Madagascar, and five colporteurs are at work.
At the Girls’ High School, conducted by Miss Hare, there are one hundred girls on the books, of whom on the occasion of our visit ninety-six were present. There is ample accommodation for more scholars, but the Government regulations prevent it being utilised. Some of the girls at the school come from the country stations and live in the Mission house with Miss Hare. It would be a very great help to the work if a Boarding Home for Girls could be established in Fianarantsoa. In addition to her duties in the School, Miss Hare also has the oversight of the wives of the students at the Theological Seminary. The Paris Mission carries on the Boys’ High School and a Normal School, to which the L. M. S. students go.
About an hour’s journey from Fianarantsoa another fine example of missionary activity is to be seen at the Leper Home, at a place pathetically called “The Village of Hope.” This work was started by Mrs. Huckett twenty years ago. My visit was a sad experience, and will be an abiding memory. No leper who enters this home, in which there are forty-three inmates, ever comes out again. The sufferers die, and are buried in the grounds. My thoughts naturally carried me back to Dr. Fowler’s Leper Home in Central China at Siao Kan. “The Village of Hope” might well be called the “Village of Despair,” for maimed and missing hands and feet told their tale only too plainly, and pitiable sores on the legs and face were common. But without exception all the patients seemed bright and happy, and one could not doubt the joy that had come into the lives of the poor afflicted creatures, thirty-three of whom were Church members, while others were enquirers. We visited the rooms in which they live, and afterwards attended a pathetic and yet happy meeting in the Chapel at which we all spoke. The lepers were genuinely glad to see us and gave us a hearty welcome. After we left we could see the whole community, standing in their white lambas just outside the gate on the top of the hill, waving farewells to us for fully half an hour.
Thirty-two miles south of Fianarantsoa is the growing Government town of Ambalavao, which is reached by pousse-pousse along another well-engineered road through the mountains. As we approached the town we were met by streams of natives, many gaily decorated, returning from the annual three days’ fair. For many years Ambalavao was worked from Ambohimandroso, but it has been a residential station since 1903 under the care of the Rev. D. M. Rees, whose untiring efforts are ably seconded by those of his wife, who has the great advantage of an excellent knowledge of French. The Mission house is an old Malagasy residence which has been enlarged. The Station Church is one of the most handsome and best built churches in Madagascar. On the occasion of our visit it was crowded to its utmost capacity by a gathering representing the forty-four outstations in the district.
Six miles south of Ambalavao is situated Ambohimandroso, the most southerly station of the L. M. S., where the Rev. Thomas and Mrs. Rowlands (who, like Mr. and Mrs. Rees, keep up the connection between Wales and Madagascar) have faithfully carried on work for the last thirty-four years. At the bottom of the valley between the two stations is a river which is crossed by a ferry, where I was met by a crowd of school children who escorted me up the steep hill to the Mission house, the boys assisting in propelling the pousse-pousse. Here again a crowded and enthusiastic united meeting was held, with representatives from most of the fifty-one out-stations connected with this Mission. Schools were inspected, visits paid to some of the Native workers, and other gatherings held. Mr. and Mrs. Rowlands find house-room for a dozen girls from country districts who are attending school. Each evening these girls file into the drawing-room for singing and prayer. On the occasion of my visit they sang “Nearer my God to Thee” in English. Then followed their salutation, “Good-night, Mr. Hawkins,” with a curtsey. I replied, “Good-night, girls; God bless you.” Then came their answer, “Thank you, Mr. Hawkins.” The same formula is gone through with “Madame” and “Sir.”
The morning I left, the girls were up early to see me off, and stood in a row alongside the filanjana. In a frivolous moment as I was leaving I pretended to weep to express my sorrow at parting from them, and off I went. Mrs. Rowlands told me a week or two afterwards that at my departure all the girls had burst into tears and cried bitterly, saying, “What a tender-hearted gentleman to cry when he leaves us. He must be thinking of his own daughter in England who has dark hair and dark eyes like us!”
From Ambohimandroso I proceeded to the Society’s newest station in Betsileo at Alakamisy Itenina, where since 1905 the Rev. D. D. Green, another Welshman, has resided and superintended the work of the thirty-seven outstations, of which this place is the centre. The journey occupied all day, and the road lay amongst the mountains, the views of the hills and clouds being magnificent. Several crowded meetings were held at the station and at outstations. At one place the crowd that had gathered together was three times as large as the Church could contain, and the meeting was held in the open-air, in defiance, I am afraid, of the French law. I stood under the shadow of the Church. In the immediate foreground was the great congregation, some on the seats which had been taken out of the Church, and some on the ground—a very picturesque crowd in white and gaily-coloured lambas. Beyond the worshippers stretched a glorious vista of mountain and valley, rolling away into “the purple distance fair,” with the brilliant sunshine bathing all in a flood of golden light.
The only residential station in Madagascar which I was unable to visit was that at Ambohimahasoa, a town of growing importance, where the Rev. Charles Collins has laboured for the last eleven years, superintending from that centre thirty-eight outstations. Both my colleagues, however, were able to visit it, and attended a large number of meetings there.
The Society’s work in Betsileo is well organised, and has been carried on for the last forty-three years with great and growing success. From the centre at Fianarantsoa, over a wide-spreading district comprising 244 outstations, the Gospel has been faithfully preached, schools have been conducted, Christian Endeavour Societies, Dorcas meetings, and many other missionary activities have been carried on, and this manifold work has been accomplished by means of a small European staff which has never exceeded ten missionaries. Their efforts have been seconded by a native staff of about fifty ordained pastors and 500 preachers. The Church is a growing one, but much yet remains to be done to complete the evangelization of the large territory in which the Society is at work. Beyond to the south, as already mentioned, are the unevangelized tribes of the Bara and Tanala districts, amongst whom up to the present very little work has been done. But the future is rich with promise, and if the existing work can be maintained and somewhat extended, the Society will have a rich reward in building up a Native Church so strong and so missionary, that before many years have passed it will be able to carry the light into the dark places around.