Twelve months in Madagascar

Comparatively little has hitherto been written on the geography of Madagascar. French travellers and English officers, as well as missionaries, have landed on the east coast and have journeyed up to the Capital: and the character of the country along their route has been fully and frequently described. The eastern coast of the island has hitherto been better known to us than any other portion. The splendid Bay of Diego Suarez; the wooded promontory on the east of Antongil Bay; the colony of Benyowsky and the Isle of Ste. Marie; Foule Point and Tamatave; the lake of Nósibé and the lagoons which follow it; Andevoranto and Máhanóro and Mánanzára; the limestone cliffs of Anósy, the rich vale of Ambólo, and the settlement of Port Dauphin; these are the points referred to by successive writers from Flacourt downwards: and all that needs to be said about them will be found carefully compiled in Ellis’s History of Madagascar, written nearly forty years ago.

Of the western part of Madagascar we know very little; though from the breadth and richness of its provinces we should like to know a great deal. Mr. Boothby in the time of Charles I. and Drury, in the days of Queen Anne, give us information respecting St. Augustine’s Bay. Captain Owen and the officers of the English navy, who in 1824 laid down so much of the coast line, have dwelt upon the great harbours of the north-west. To M. Guillain we are indebted for information respecting the same quarter, the island of Nosibé, the Hova settlements near Pasandava Bay, the town and port of Mojangá, and the Sákaláva districts as far as Morondáva; and we owe much to Mr. Lyons Macleod, formerly Consul at Mozambique, and still more to Mr. Ellis’s History, for giving us a summary of this information. During his visits to the island, Mr. Ellis scarcely touched the question of its geography; he took no observations and prepared no maps: though to the botany of the island and to the facts connected with the moral condition of the people he added greatly.

The traveller who has seen most of Madagascar previous to our visit is M. Grandidier. This gentleman spent several years in the island between 1865 and 1870; and devoted much time and strength to the examination of several of its districts. He lived for a considerable time on the north-east and the west coasts: he travelled up from Mojangá to the Capital; crossed the island through the Betsileo province; and visited the almost unknown district of the Sihánaka tribe. His observations have not yet been given to the world; he has read to the Geographical Society of Paris, and has published, a sketch of his travels; and has published a general map of the island on a moderate scale, far more correct than anything which has preceded it. But the geographical world yet waits for the complete story, which he promises them in ten or twelve volumes. He was well known to our missionaries and respected by them.

All recent maps of Madagascar (except Grandidier’s) are traceable to two sources. The coast line was laid down by Capt. Owen and his companions in 1824. The detail of the interior is derived from the map of Colonel Lloyd, published in 1849 by Mr. Arrowsmith: and Colonel Lloyd’s memoir on the geography of the island will be found in vol. xx. of the Royal Geographical Society’s Journal. In regard to this map Colonel Lloyd says: “The coast line may be depended on as tolerably exact, having been reduced from the various nautical surveys. For the detail of the interior I cannot claim the slightest pretensions to correctness. It is only an attempt to form approximately some foundation for future inquiries, and more correct and extensive research.” Notwithstanding this frank disclaimer, editors and writers have gone on copying this map down to the present time.

In this important matter I have felt personally interested for several years. Anxious at one time to provide for the Directors a good map of the interior, we found that exact details were wanting. We knew the names of prominent mountains, rivers and stations, but where to place them no one could say. The Directors then applied to our missionaries in the island: and several excellent journals and sketch maps were communicated in reply. The principal contribution to our effort was this. Mr. Cameron the senior member of the mission, after carefully fixing the position of Antanánarivo, commenced a triangulation of the plain of Imerina: and step by step prepared a most valuable map of those portions of the province contiguous to the capital: the defect of the map was, that though it indicated the chief positions, it did not exhibit the form and height of the ground.

Aware that part of our duty would require us to visit the whole of the central portions of the island, my colleague and I prepared to take advantage of our opportunities and add something at least to the knowledge of these provinces possessed by the geographical world. We carried out our purpose under the happiest auspices. We were everywhere received as friends. We invariably informed the Prime Minister of our movements and proceedings; we were at liberty to go where we liked, and we experienced nothing but hospitality and kindness. By special permission we photographed the Queen’s Palace and the Royal tombs; we planted our theodolite, compass and tripods on the tops of hills and in the open markets; and we let every one know that we were anxious to make a correct map of the country for their use as well as ours.

In the first instance we worked on Mr. Cameron’s lines. We went over a great portion of his work; revised it from our own observations; and extended it in all directions. To the north-west we laid down Vonizongo as far as the population extends. West and south-west we carried the survey to Ambohiveloma; over all Imamo, to Lake Itásy and the districts of Mándridráno and Menabé. Thence we passed it through Betáfo and Sirabé: enclosed the Ankárat mountains within it and measured their height. With Mr. Cameron himself, as I have already shown, we continued the survey down the Betsileo Province to its southern end. Eastward we laid down Angávo, the moors of Ambátoména, the plain of Ankay, and the Sihánaka Lakes. And finally by a route lying west of that taken by M. Grandidier, we went down to the sea at Mojangá. The work proved most enjoyable. We followed up the country step by step, greatly aided by the numerous conspicuous hills, with whose names and appearance we soon grew perfectly familiar. The Map which accompanies this little volume is one result of our work: and the red lines which mark our routes upon it will show how fully we traversed the country and how much of it we saw with our own eyes.

Much of the information acquired in our journeys will be found in the several chapters which describe them, and which the various sections of the map are intended to illustrate. It will suffice therefore here to indicate the general structure and character of the island. The navy-surveys show that the island of Madagascar has a length of 818 geographical miles, measuring from Cape Ambro on the north to Cape St. Mary’s on the south. The position of the former is in lat. 12° 2′ S.: that of the latter is lat. 25° 40′ S. The greatest breadth of the island from Cape St. Andrew to Tamatave is 354 miles: the longitudes of these two points being, long. 44° 30′ E. and long. 49° 28′ 30″ E. respectively. These longitudes have been fixed by reference to the Observatory in Cape Town. The island is a long oval, pointed at the northern end; and its major axis lies in the direction of N. 16° E. While a crevasse and channel of great depth separate it from the continent of Africa, the Farquhar Islands, at its north end, the Séchelles with their red clay, and the coral reefs in the Indian Ocean seem to me to connect its granite hills with the Laccadive and Maldive Islands and with the mighty forces which in Southern India threw into their present position the Nilgiri and Kunda hills. The island was probably the noblest portion of some great continent which stretched away from Hindustan to the south-west; and which shared in the tropical flora and fauna of India in an early stage of the earth’s history, and was separated from it while both were still young.

The chief physical feature of Madagascar is the central mountain mass, which commences with lofty mountains at the north end of the island, and retains them till within a moderate distance of its southern cape. The entire central line is high ground and only its two sides are level plains along the east and west sea-coasts. The central mass is by no means uniform in its appearance. We have already shown how, on ascending to the interior from the east coast, the traveller meets and successively mounts three lofty mountain walls, each supporting a broad terrace behind it. The first of these, west of Ampásimbé, rises 900 feet: beyond Befórona, the second terrace is 1400 feet higher: the third ascent at Angávo carried us up 1620 feet on to the highest part of the Imerina plain. The central plateau has a general height of 4000 feet: at its widest part it is ninety miles in width; in the narrowest it is about thirty miles. This plateau is somewhat over two hundred geographical miles in length. It abounds in ridges and detached hills of gneiss and granite, which give wonderful variety to the scenery; and at several points these rocks spread out in wide, lofty and barren moors. The rugged ridges enclose broad basins of the sedimentary clay, and the numerous streams of pure water furnish abundant sustenance for the rice crops, which form the principal food of the people. As this central level is reached by great terraces from the east, so on the north, south and west, the traveller descends from it on to other terraces, going gradually lower and lower, until he reaches the level of the sea. It was a matter of deep interest to Mr. Pillans and myself that we descended on to the first terrace at several points; at Ambohimandroso, beyond Lake Itasy, and in the valley of Ankay, before we finally followed down the entire series of steps on our way to Mojangá. The fact that to so large an extent the island consists of red clay, and appears to have been at some time perfectly buried in it, accounts for the peculiar form of its terraces and of the basins which they sustain. The enormous volcanic forces hereafter to be described may have been required to break the granite rocks and render them available for the use of men: but water has exerted a mighty agency likewise on the island: and whether by rains or streams or waterspouts, in the bursting of lakes or by gentle showers, during long, long ages it has been ploughing and moulding and shaping the land, and it is moulding and shaping and beautifying it still.

The Malagasy people who inhabit the island appear to be a single race, notwithstanding some tradition about “dwarfs.” Nowhere do we find any tribe or clan or race in any secluded corner of the land, (such as we meet with in the hill districts of India, of Sumatra and Borneo), totally different from the inhabitants of the plains or open provinces. Nor do we meet with any portion of the people specially degraded below their fellows as a conquered and despised race. So far as known the people of the entire island are in most respects similar to one another; and sixty years ago they stood more on a common level than they do now. The main differences at present existing between one portion and another are the result of Christian education and of compact, just and settled government.

There is undoubtedly one distinction which may be drawn among the Malagasy; they may be divided into the dark and fair tribes. From the first writers on Madagascar have referred to this difference between them. But in the face of important points of agreement I think too much has been made of it. It is well known to residents in India, that low, hot, saline and malarious districts tend to darken the olive complexion; while dry, open, cooler plains, tend to bleach it and render it fair. Now it is the coast tribes of Madagascar, inhabiting the hot, feverish provinces, which have the dark skin: while those which occupy the central plateau with its bracing air, are, in general, fair. Other considerations must be looked to: and I find them in the dialects spoken; and in the course taken by the movements and migration of the tribes as they gradually occupied the island. In regard to these matters several mistakes have been made by various writers.

Judging from the movements of the tribes and from their present relations to one another, it seems to me that the Malagasy are divided into three tribes, starting from different centres, and inhabiting separate districts. The Betsimisaraka tribe and its offshoots occupy the east coast and its two lower terraces. The Sakalavas hold the broad plains of the west coast in all its length, and overlap the upper extremity of the north-east coast. The Hovas and their branches inhabit the entire central plateau, and the flanks of its southern extremity.

The Betsimisárakas include the Sihánakas, the people of Ankáy, and (I think also) the Tanálas, all on the higher terrace between the lines of forest. These upper divisions of the tribe have separate names; but they are merely expressive of the localities to which the people have migrated. The Betániménas are those who occupy the “districts of red clay.” The Tanálas are the people of “the forest districts.” The Tankays live “in Ankay,” the “open land”; not concealed by or broken by long hills. The Sihánakas are (as we shall see) “the people of the lakes.” In no part of the country occupied by this tribe is the population concentrated and numerous: all their districts are thinly peopled. Important mistakes have been made in regard to these subdivisions. Both the Sihánakas and the Bezánozáno of Ankay have been described as Sákalávas. But a visit to the districts which they inhabit shows at once that with the Sakalavas they have nothing to do. They are shut off from the latter by all but impassable mountains. They are Betsimisárakas in their houses, their dialects, and the dressing of their hair: and an examination of the country plainly indicates the points on the east coast, from which their people started. In regard to the still greater error of regarding the entire Betsimisáraka people as half-breed Arabs, there is even less to be said. The statement must have originated in some mistake. It might apply to a few people in and around the Arab colony of St. Mary’s; but it is wholly inapplicable to the entire people of the east coast.

The Sákalávas are also divided into tribes: but there is little cohesion amongst them; they live separate from one another, and have frequent petty wars. Their numbers cannot be great, though they occupy a large tract of rich tropical country, which under a settled government and in diligent hands would yield vast quantities of produce. They have for ages been at feud with their Hova neighbours, ever ready to carry off their cattle and plunder their farmsteads and fields. The name they bear, “the tall cats,” is a complimentary title given by their Hova foes, who have found them as fierce and formidable with the ancient weapons as any wild cat to be met with in the woods. The Sakalávas have not been slow to return the compliment; and they contemptuously style the Hovas ambóalámbo, a mixture of the dog and the boar, “a set of vagabonds.”

The Hovas proper now occupy all the northern portion of the central plateau, whether Vonizongo, Imámo or other districts. And though at one time it was usual to describe their province as Ankova, in recent days the tendency has been to drop this term altogether, and to call the entire Hova country, Imerina. The Betsileo tribe are without doubt of the same blood as the Hovas. The Ibára tribe, who live south and west of the Betsileo, are (as I have shown) kindred to the Betsileo. Each of these sections of the central population has grown numerous, has had its separate interests, and has been at feud with its fellows. Nevertheless many similarities of language, dress, customs and manners exist between them. And the differences are no greater than those which divide them from the other tribes of the island. Politically these tribes are drawing nearer to each other under Hova rule; and these similarities will be increased and developed rather than repressed.

In the important inquiry whence the Malagasy have come and with what other branches of the human race they are connected, the evidence supplied by their language is of the first importance. Naturally it might have been expected that living so near to the continent of Africa, they would be connected with the African tribes; or at least that some of their settlements would have been founded by African colonists. And among scholars there have not been wanting those who have argued warmly that they are substantially an African people. The views of the late Mr. Crawford on this point are well known. He argued that the Malagasy are substantially a negrillo race; with woolly hair, African blood and an inability to form an alphabet: that Malay pirates, blown away from the eastward, had mingled with them and left their mark upon the language; and so on. He has been followed by Mr. Wake and others in recent days.

Even on theory it might have been objected that the African tribes are not navigators, and that the Mozambique channel with its strong currents and stronger south-east winds must have been, as it still is, a formidable barrier against intercourse between these tribes and Madagascar. But in point of fact there is no tribe on the island (so far as it has yet been examined) which can be shown to be substantially African, in its language, its features, its habits, its relations to its neighbours. There are pure Africans in abundance (as we shall see) scattered about in certain districts on the west, imported through the Arab slave trade. And that African element has tainted the original Malagasy race. But no original and distinct tribe on the island has yet been pointed out as long settled African colonists: much less can the entire Malagasy people be identified with such a tribe. On the contrary the three great divisions of the Malagasy hold together; embrace almost the entire island; and their language and tribal customs suggest a totally different direction as to their origin.

In illustration of this unity of the races now occupying Madagascar, I have noted with interest that the names given to localities in all parts of the island, Sakaláva, Betsimisáraka and Hóva are of the same character; and are plainly derived from the present Malagasy language. Many of the Sakaláva names are distinctly Hóva. Off the north-west coast we find Nosibe, “big island,” Nosikomba, “monkey island,” and Nosifály, “glad island;” we have Ampásiména, “red sand village;” Mároláhy, “the village of princes,” and Andránomaláza, “famous water.” We have Márovoáy, with its “many crocodiles,” Mojangá “the restorer of health,” and Mevatanána “good place for a town.” On the west coast we have Máintiráno, “the black river,” Mafándráno, “hot springs,” and Mámiráno “sweet waters.” We have one town, Mánandáza “the glorious,” and another, Malaimbándy “the place of indolent lies.” We have Fierénana in Vonizongo and on the Sakalava coast. We have the pass of Ambodifiakárana among the limestone ridges of the Sakalavas, and under the granite moors on the Mania. Hundreds of names are scattered over the east and west coasts, bearing a striking similarity to those of the interior, and applied as fittingly to the places which they indicate. The names and the people are evidently one.

Baron Humboldt, the linguist, long since detected the Malay element in their language. Other writers have followed him. And the more attentively and completely the subject is examined the stronger will the evidence of that origin appear. Unhappily such a complete examination has not yet been made. Malay scholars have but partially understood Malagasy: and Malagasy scholars have looked but little into Malay. And we know scarcely more than was written by the Rev. J. J. Freeman, forty years ago. Yet the materials are beginning to accumulate out of which the comparison may be made in full detail. Besides Marsden’s Grammar and Dictionary, in Crawford’s Malay Grammar, in Wallace’s Eastern Archipelago, in the Appendix of Dr. Turner’s “Nineteen Years in Polynesia,” there are lists of words and idioms in the Malay and its cognate dialects, Samoan, Máori and Tahitian, available for the discussion of the question: and ere long we may hope to see it undertaken thoroughly. I have no pretensions to a knowledge of either tongue. But it happens that during my visit to Madagascar unpublished papers from competent men came into my hands, and I will venture to give a few illustrations which they furnish of the connection between the two languages. Mr. Freeman observes with interest that it is the Betsimisáraka edition of Malagasy which comes nearest to the Malay; and it is the Maláya branch of the language, rather than Javanese or Báli, which comes closest to Malagasy. Here is a simple list of twenty words.

In their structure and government the two languages resemble one another: but the Malay seems a less formed and complete tongue than the Malagasy. Both languages have the inclusive and exclusive pronouns: and the same form is used in the nominative and objective cases. In both reduplication is common. The prefixes through which the verb is conjugated, though differing slightly in form, constantly bear the same meaning in Malay as in Malagasy and are used in the same way. In both cases the same sort of improvement was needed: and came from the same source. The Arab traders gave to each people the names of the days of the week and of the months of the year. The scales for weighing money are Arabic, mizán. The word for writing, sóratra, seems Arabic also.

Additional improvement to the Malagasy came from their intercourse with the French, who in the course of many years’ visits to the coasts of the island, introduced new articles to their notice, which are still called by their French names. At least seventy French words have become naturalised in Malagasy and that in very curious fashion. The young Malagasy now sits upon a seza, in front of látábat-ra; his rice is brought from the lákozy, and he eats his beef with a fórisét-y. He wipes his face with a mósara, washes his hands with sávona, and dries them on a sáriveta. He keeps his clothes in a lálamóra (armoire); rides forth on his soavály; and wears patent-leather bóty.

The colonisation of Madagascar by the Malay tribes is a topic full of interest: but we know almost nothing about it. It is singular that in the very first mention made of the island, the celebrated notice of it by Marco Paolo, he should have made a strange mistake and mixed it with information which belongs to the Somali country around Cape Gardafui. Madagascar has neither elephants nor hippopotami; neither leopards nor bears nor lions. Nevertheless it is evident that the great traveller learned something real about the island, and of that aspect of it which was specially presented to the great sailors of his time, the Arab and Persian traders, whose fathers had visited it for many ages. Sandal wood is still exported from the northern ports; and the Hindus carry on “a profitable trade.” I do not think that the people whom Fra Mauro speaks of as blown away to the southward were connected with the original settling of Madagascar by the Malays: the accident he describes seems to me of much later date than that settlement; and that it happened to Indian traders who were sailing down the African coast. When they were blown back again, they may have seen shells of the Œpyornis, on the sandy terrace at the south-east end of Madagascar, where M. Grandidier found both shells and bones. Fra Mauro does not say that they saw the living birds. Sindbad’s additions about the elephants and the jewels are applications of “travellers’ tales” and traditions floating about the nautical world long before his day.

That in early times there should have been a Malay immigration into Madagascar is nothing strange. Every thing new which we are learning about the Indian Ocean and the China Sea tends to show how boldly and continuously those seas were traversed before the Christian era. Phœnician navigation, both from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, was ably carried out even in the time of Solomon; and the evidence is accumulating that their colonies, trading settlements, and ports of call were established along all the African and Indian coasts before the Ptolemies had ceased to rule. They had long since learned the regularity of the monsoons and decided how to employ them; Zanzibar and its neigbourhood had become the head-quarters of the Central African trade; and every year a great fleet crossed the Indian ocean from the ports of Gujerat and Malabar with the north-east monsoon. What was a twenty days’ voyage before a fair and steady breeze, to men accustomed to the sea, in large vessels of three hundred and eight hundred tons, such as the Alexandrian corn ships or the buggalows of the Gulf of Cutch, with their strong masts, long yard, and huge sails? To me it seems that they mastered the navigation early: its continuity was never broken till Albuquerque and Almeida took it with violence from their hands: and I venture to think that in the Arab merchants of these Eastern seas, with their Khojah friends in Western India and the “Old Man of the Mountain,” at their head, we have the lineal descendants, in blood and language and employment, of the Phœnicians of ancient times.

Able navigation was not confined to the waters of the Indian Ocean. We know how before the Christian era Hindu merchants and sailors traversed the Bay of Bengal, passed the Straits of Malacca and had flourishing settlements, temples and palaces in Bali and the great islands of the Java Sea. The Malay races in those islands had already proved themselves adventurous navigators. We do not know how early they left their mark on all the eastern kingdoms of the Bay of Bengal; on Ceylon, which was to them Pulo Selán “the island of gems;” and at various points along the coasts of India, as far west as Gujerat. The Chinese too have not been behindhand with their well-built vessels and the compass which they first employed to direct them. Long, long were they at work, before they had formed and perfected the enormous junks which so delighted Marco Paolo, with their well-caulked seams, their fifteen watertight compartments, their fifty cabins, their three hundred sailors and numerous families of women and children: ready to undertake long coasting voyages, or even run up the Straits to Ceylon, or visit the three Ports of India which they loved, and from which they were driven only four hundred years ago. The very finest of these vessels belonged, not to the northern ports of China, but to the harbours of Siam. Among all the Hindu and Arab vessels I have seen at Zanzibar, Calcutta and Bombay, none equalled in size and strength of build the noble Siamese junks, which I once found at anchor, after their annual voyage northward, in the bends of the Peiho. It is when these pursuits are in full activity that ability in their management is developed in its highest forms. And what more natural than that among these Arab and Siamese and Malay navigators there should appear, from time to time, men of genius to shape out new enterprises: or that among their chiefs and people there should arise another Prince Henry or Queen Elizabeth or Ferdinand and Isabella, to foster and encourage them?

Anyhow there the Malagasy are; a Malay people, following Malay customs, some of them possessing Malay eyes and hair and features; and all of them speaking a Malay tongue at the present hour. When they came, where they landed, what hindered their return, we know not. Was some large vessel caught in a furious cyclone and driven ashore? Were the first colonists few or many? Did they communicate with their friends and get others to join them? Were several settlements established at different points: was the colonisation continuous: if so, over how many years did it spread? Did Malay navigation extend to the east coast of Africa, and are Zambesi, Kilimány, Mombása, Kiloa, Masambika and other names there, of Malay origin, as Mr. Freeman suggested?

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:—

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.

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.

They made Imerina and all the upper plateau their own. And here for five hundred years they settled down and spread and grew. They ate, they drank; they planted, they builded; they spun and they wove; they married and were given in marriage. They formed the iron hatchet and the iron spade. They cut down the forests and built houses, well framed, well fitted, with roofs that successfully shed the rain. They built villages and towns; surrounded them with deep ditches and protected them with the cactus hedge. They grew into compact tribes, obedient to their chief and his appointed officers. The members of the tribe met in council; and in the public assemblies, not only maintained their liberties, but developed the powers and the resources of their mellifluous language. They made war on their neighbours or defended themselves against attack: their kings cemented peace by marriage alliances. They made great feasts; and though no poetry has survived, their orators could recite the traditions of the past: and their assemblies were enlivened with the dance and the song. Great heroes arose among them, like Rapéto and Ralámbo; of whom wondrous stories went abroad.

Two hundred and fifty years ago the Malagasy not only began to be better known to the outside world, but light begins to be thrown upon their internal growth and condition. At that period we find the Arab merchants settled at three points on the coast and a foreign trade steadily carried on. We find them on the east at two points. At Mátitánana they have been settled long; they have written the Malagasy language in Arabic characters; they have taught the tribes the Arabic names of the week days and the months: but they have made no converts. As the first specimens of the rukh’s egg were dug up here, it is possible that Sindbad’s application of the old story may have been derived from some sailor who had visited the settlement. There was another Arab colony on the island above Tamatave, called by them Nosi Ibrahim: now known by the French name of I. Ste Marie. Both these settlements, owing doubtless to the Portuguese invasion of the eastern seas, were in a state of decay. The third settlement, at what is now called Mojangá, had done better: it was more easily accessible; it was nearer to the head quarters of the Arab trade at Zanzibar; it was on the lee side of the island, on a splendid bay; and both the Indian cloth trade and the traffic in slaves were carried on under favourable conditions. More than this, able men among the Arabs had watched their opportunities, had practically usurped the government of the locality, and as the Sakalavás had no cohesion, they retained their power long. At this time the trade of the Indian Ocean was breaking up. The Portuguese had built up nothing in the place of the power they had destroyed. The sea swarmed with adventurers: Captain Kyd and other English pirates made Madagascar their head quarters: and French schemers were planning and contriving settlements on the sea board, hoping in the end to obtain possession of the island.

From all these quarters the Malagasy people gained no help. Under God’s care in the quiet of the interior they were making steady progress. It is evident from their traditions that two hundred and fifty years ago, considerable strength was accumulating in the community, broader ideas began to prevail, and efforts at closer union were put forth. Ralámbo stands first in the new line of monarchs drawing the people onward. To him are attributed great advance in the care of cattle, and the establishment of the Fandroana festival. His second son, Andrianjáka, in the days of Cromwell, founded Antanánarivo, on the hill till then called Iálamánga. Sixty years later (about 1720), Andriamásinaválona, a man of large mind, brought the whole of the Imerina towns under his rule. He was a wise and thoughtful ruler, ready for great enterprises. To him is attributed the greatest engineering work yet executed in the province, the embankments of the river Ikopa, which prevent the annual flooding of the great rice plain. His name is always mentioned in public kabáries with profound respect. On his death his kingdom was broken up among his sons; but a hundred years ago, all the twelve cities were re-united under Impóin-Imérina, the ablest monarch of that princely line. The border provinces also on every side felt the weight of his strong hand: and his son Radáma, by hard fighting, long marches and untiring energy, consolidated and extended the dominion on every side. Only the south-west Sakalávas and Ikongo remained independent.

Even then, with all their growing energy, the Malagasy nation was still young. Their cities were growing; the villages were becoming numerous; and on the whole peace was maintained. But it was often broken for a time: and the hollow valleys between the royal towns were still swamps full of reeds, a protection to each city against its neighbours. The rice cultivation was extending; but an immense area of the great plain was still occupied by these great reeds, high overhead, thick, and all but impassable. It took three days to travel from the present capital to Ambohimanga, twelve miles to the north: the swamps were traversed in canoes: and enemies, with spears, might be encountered at any point, lurking in wait for prey.

In this brief sketch I cannot enter at length into the customs of these tribes. Their ancient warfare with the thin spear and round hide shield; their cylinder-bellows, and clay furnaces for smelting iron; their simple looms and spindles, have all been described and pictured by Mr. Ellis. With one thing however I was greatly struck: with their custom of giving over to the dead in their large stone tombs, the dresses, ornaments, furniture and possessions, which were favourites while they lived. And I remembered how the Malay tribes of Polynesia and the North American Indians have been accustomed to do the same. Another custom was to exhibit by rows of cooking stones, or of bullock skulls on poles, the extent to which the funeral feasts had been carried in honour of the dead, and the estimation in which they were held.

The social life of the Capital at the beginning of this century, shows in a very striking way how poor, as compared with other nations, the civilisation of the Malagasy still was. Almost no European improvements had reached them, except the fire-arms which they had obtained from the coast, and which proved a powerful instrument in securing the consolidation of the kingdom. When Le Sage visited him, Radáma was a thorough Malagasy, in his dress, his superstitions, his house, his habits. He was dressed in a lamba, and sat on the floor, to eat with his hands out of a silver dish. His people were the same; and when they met Le Sage and gave him a royal reception as the English envoy, they were covered with silver ornaments, and shouted and danced and sang around the strangers with truly barbaric pomp and show. In mental grasp and in their longing for better things Radáma and his father were much beyond all this. Radáma was a gentleman in his manners, courteous, considerate, hospitable and kind. Both kings were wise in council, energetic in action, eloquent in speech: both were humane in purpose, though in despotic harshness they were often cruel; both were truthful, straightforward, and truly anxious to improve. They were fine illustrations of the weaknesses of Madagascar, as well as of its native strength and native virtues.

Beneath the surface lay many proofs of the backwardness of the people. Life and property were insecure: there was much poverty: few incentives existed to active industry: the country was destitute of roads: systematic travelling and intercourse between the different parts of the country, was all but unknown. To me one of the most instructive illustrations of the state of the island and of the relation of its people to the world at large is furnished by an event which occurred at this time on the north-western coast. On more than one occasion at the end of last century the Sakalava tribes had taken advantage of small vessels, in calm weather, had seized them, brought them to land and burnt them for the sake of their copper and iron. Gathering together hundreds of men, they had undertaken occasional expeditions against the Comóro Islands and harried and robbed their people. But in 1816 they planned a great expedition against the fort of Ibo, near Mozambique, three hundred miles away. They gathered no less than two hundred and fifty canoes, containing 6250 men; and set out on their expedition. They were overtaken by a violent hurricane and only sixty-eight canoes reached the African shore. That was in 1816. Yet it reads like a page from Robinson Crusoe, or a story from the South Sea Islands.

I need not pursue the history. With Radáma we have reached our own times; we have reached modern efforts, modern improvement, modern missions. Often has the later story been written: it is told by Mr. Sibree in his little book, and by Mr. Ellis in his “Martyr Church” effectively and with brevity. Let us look at the people as they are. At first sight my colleague and I thought them backward: but the more we reflected on the past; on their complete isolation from the great world around them; the simple frame-work and the small attainments of their national and social life, so late as sixty years ago; the more thoroughly we appreciated the great stride in progress which they have taken in that brief period. Many officers of Radáma’s day are still living, with their antiquated coats and antiquated notions; and till very recently they have much hindered change and trammelled advance. But solid progress has been made. It has been made in their outer life. But best of all, it has been secured in far greater degree in their religious character and in their moral and social habits. Indeed it is a matter for special congratulation and thankfulness, that it is that moral improvement which has come first; and that it is so deeply rooted and so widely spread. The external civilisation will follow quite rapidly enough.

In the form of their national life, the Malagasy are still a federation of Malay tribes. Each of the greater tribes has numerous sub-divisions: at the head of which are the noble families and princes descended from the great chiefs of former ages. Among these the immediate descendants of the ancient kings of all the sections and cities of old times occupy an honoured place. The feudal rights and dignities and privileges of these noble clans are carefully maintained, as well as their feudal duties faithfully performed. All the commoner ranks of the people are enrolled and included among the clients and followers of these inferior chiefs and princes; or among the direct followers of the sovereign. All payments for taxation within the tribes are made in kind or in feudal service rendered. Officers are remunerated by lands or by the assignment to them of the service of so many inferior men. Rice, sugar-cane, lambas, firewood, beams for building, bundles of thatch, stones, pork, beef are all rendered to them and to their superiors as part of that service. Under the law of Ralámbo, the rump of every ox slaughtered in the Capital is delivered to the Queen. On a message from the Queen asking for any special form of service, local meetings are held by the clans to arrange as to the mode of distributing it. The term used to denote this system is fánampóana, which means exactly “service;” and it bears all the variety and breadth of meaning which the English word had in feudal times. Though having in it just elements, the system has many weaknesses. It bears heavily upon the skilful: it is unequal in its demands: it represses progress by taking away all stimulus to self-improvement or to individual enterprise. It keeps society on a dead level and fosters indolence and indifference. It will only be cured by a fair distribution of the services required in all grades of society, and by a commutation of the service for a fixed money payment.

In regard to legislation and general government, the Queen is the head of all the tribes. On great questions public meetings of the tribes (kabáries) are held: discussions take place, and the Sovereign pronounces the decision. The Sovereign in this way enacts all laws. But they are declared verbally by herself or some appointed officer, (as we have seen in the Betsileo) in public meeting; and the people and their representatives respond. Judges and magistrates, “heads of hundreds,” and so on, are appointed to hear cases and complaints, or to examine criminals: they sit in the open market. Many improvements are coming in to these arrangements. The laws have been codified twice by recent Sovereigns, and have been put in print. The Malagasy have now a “Prime Minister,” a “Commander-in-Chief,” and a “Chief Secretary of State,” called by the English names. And these officers, with a few others, form a kind of inner council, who consult together about public affairs. Formal receptions are held by the Court and affairs are conducted with dignity and good sense.

Apart from their religious instructions, the missionaries of the London Missionary Society have done a great deal to enlarge the general knowledge of the people and elevate their family and social life. They have given them new instruments for material progress, that have already secured valuable results. They first systematically wrote down the language: and both by learning to write and to use the press, the government and the people have made abundant use of the new power placed at their command. Mr. Chick, with his huge anvil and muscular arms, astonished the people by the larger forms of iron work which he could produce. Radáma admired him greatly. The native smiths and artisans soon copied their master. Carpenters, builders and masons have done the same. Perhaps the most striking improvement which has been accepted on a large scale, is the adoption of the English dress. It took place during our visit, in December 1873. With the approval of the people, the Queen expressed her readiness to receive her subjects at Court dressed in English costume. The transformation was rapid, and the demands made in all directions for hats, bonnets, feathers, sprigs of flowers, and ladies’ jackets was very great. Higher wants than these are being felt: and in due time they will no doubt be supplied. Of these roads are an important item: and the payment for service in money. And it is a happy thing, that by improving and elevating the customs and institutions of the country on their old lines, the stability and safety of the nation are secured.

Things are yet very backward. But the Malagasy are an intelligent people, an orderly people, a loyal people, a religious people. They have learned much already: and they are improving daily. They are governed by a good Queen and by wise and able officers. Had they at hand, in the Capital, a wise English Consul, to advise them (when they need) in difficulties, and to aid them in the solution of important problems continually coming before them, their progress would be greatly facilitated. Under such influences, secular and sacred, Hawaii, with its sixty thousand people, has grown into a Christian nation and has taken its place in the world’s history. Far greater will Madagascar at length become, when elevated, sanctified and ennobled in all the elements of its social and public life.