MY object in these chapters is to describe, as vividly as I am able, the varied aspects of the different months throughout the year in this central province of Imèrina, as they present themselves to anyone who lives in the capital city of Antanànarìvo, and is frequently travelling in the country around it. I want to show the variety of nature during the changing seasons, as the result of the heat or cold, and of the moisture or drought of the climate. And it must be remembered that although this central province of Madagascar is by several degrees well within the tropics, our climate for some months of the year is by no means the “tropical” one supposed in our ordinary English use of that word. On these interior highlands, from three to five thousand feet above the sea-level, the south-easterly winds blow from June to August with a keenness and force which it needs thick clothing to withstand, and makes a wood fire during the long evenings a very pleasant addition to the comforts of home life.

The seasons in the central regions of the island are practically only two: the hot and rainy period, from the beginning of November to the end of April; and the cool and dry period, during the other months, from May to October. The Malagasy are, however, accustomed to speak of four seasons of their year—viz. the Lòhataona—i.e. “head of the year”—during September and October, when the planting of the early rice is going on, and a few showers give promise of the coming rains; the Fàhavàratra—i.e. “thunder-time”—when severe storms of thunder and lightning are frequent, with heavy downpours of rain, from the early part of November to the end of February or into March; the Fàraràno—i.e. “last rains”—from the beginning of March and through April; and lastly, the Rinìnina—i.e. “time of bareness”—when the grass becomes dry and withered, from June to August.

Taking therefore the seasons in order, from the beginning, not of January, which gives no natural division of the year, but from the early part of September, when the blossoms of the trees speak of the “good time coming” of renewed verdure, I shall note down, in their succession, the varying aspects of the country, in climate, vegetation, and culture of the soil, as well as the animal life, throughout the changing year.

Before, however, proceeding to do this, it may give greater distinctness to the mental picture I want to draw for those who have never been in Madagascar, if I try to describe in a few words the appearance of this central province of the island, especially of that portion of it which is in the neighbourhood of the capital. From the usually pure and clear air of this elevated region, which is not defiled by the smoke of chimneys, nor often thickened by the mists of the lowlands, one can see for extraordinary distances, and hills and rocks twenty or thirty miles away stand out more sharp and distinct than they would usually do in England at only four or five miles’ distance.

Let us go up to the highest point of the long rocky ridge on and around which Antanànarìvo is built, from which we can “view the landscape o’er,” and try and gain a clear notion of this “heart of Imèrina,” as it is often called by the Malagasy. The city hill reaches the greatest elevation at a point called Ambòhimitsímbina—i.e. “Hill of regarding”—which is seven hundred feet above the general level of the rice-plains around it. From this “coign of vantage” there is of course a very extensive view in every direction, and we see at once that the surrounding country is very mountainous. East and south there is little but hills of all shapes and sizes to be seen, except along the valleys of the river Ikòpa and its tributaries, which come from the edge of the upper forest, thirty miles or so away to the east. To the north the country is more undulating, but at ten or twelve miles away high hills and moors close in the view, some of the hills rising into mountains. The country is everywhere in these directions, except in the river valleys, covered with red soil of various shades of colour, through which the granite and gneiss foundations protrude at almost every elevated point in huge boulder-like rocks, and form the summits of every hill and mountain, often in dome-shaped or boss-like masses, and in some like titanic castles and towers.

There is little foliage to be seen except on the top of some of the hills where the ancient towns and villages are built, and in such places a circle of old àviàvy trees and an occasional amòntana tree give a pleasant relief to the prevailing red and ochre tints of the soil, and, in the cold and dry season, to the russet and grey hues of the dry grass on the bare hills and downs. The largest mass of green is at the old capital, Ambòhimànga, eleven miles away to the north, where the steep sides of the hill are still covered with a remnant of the original forest, which formerly was doubtless much more extensive in this part of the central province. In the deep fosses which surround old villages there is also often a considerable amount of foliage, as well as in the hollows and along the streams. But it must be confessed that a large extent of Imèrina, in common with the rest of the interior, consists of bare rounded down-like hills, very uninteresting in character; although towards sunset, in the slanting rays, these hills have a softness of outline in their curves which has a decided element of beauty not to be ignored.

To the west, from north to south, the prospect is very extensive. To the south-west there rises by very gradual slopes, at some thirty-five miles’ distance, the mass of Ankàratra, its three or four highest peaks reaching an elevation of nearly nine thousand feet above the sea, and about half that height above the general level of the country. But even at such a distance the summits usually stand out sharp and clear against the sky. Due west and north-west is a considerable extent of comparatively level country, beyond which mountains fifty miles away are distinctly seen on the horizon. In the foreground, stretching away many miles, is the great rice-plain of Bétsimitàtatra, from which numbers of low red hills, most of them with villages, rise like islands out of a green sea where the rice is growing. Along the plain the river Ikòpa can be seen, winding its way northwards to join the Bétsibòka; the united streams, with many tributaries, flowing into the sea through the Bay of Bèmbatòka. This great plain, “the granary of Antanànarìvo,” was formerly an immense marsh, and earlier still an extensive lake with numerous bays among the surrounding hills; but since the embanking of the river by some of the early kings of Imèrina, it has become the finest rice-plain of the island and, with its connected valleys, furnishes the bulk of the food of the people of the central province.

The embankments require, of course, constant attention during the rainy season, when the river is swollen by the heavy rains; and during the time of the native regime, an unusually wet season would cause them to give way, so that the rice-fields were flooded. At such times the whole population would be called out to help in stopping the breaches, and I remember one occasion, a Sunday, when we had no afternoon service, and with others of my brother missionaries I spent several hours in carrying sods and stones, together with our people. Another such calamity occurred in January 1893; for on the night of Saturday, the 28th, and the following day, there was an unusually heavy storm, doing immense damage, destroying hundreds of houses and village churches, and breaking the river banks, so that in a day or two hundreds of thousands of acres of the great rice-plain were under water, three or four feet deep. In some parts it was difficult to trace the river banks; it was “water, water everywhere,” and scores of low hills were again turned into islands, cut off from all communication, except by canoe, with the world around them. If one could have forgotten the terrible loss to the people of their crops of rice just ready to be cut, it was a most beautiful scene, and reminded one that in ancient times this great plain was always a lake, when many now extinct animals, reptiles and gigantic birds found a home in it and on its shores. For centuries the heavy rains—probably far heavier then than now, from the greater extent of forest—went on filling up the valleys with the rich black and blue loam; gradually the lake became less and less deep; slowly the river cut out its bed; and then man came on the scene, and the old native kings aided nature by embanking the river; the marshes became rice-fields and supplied with food the present large population which lives all around it.

From this elevated point at least a hundred small towns and villages can be recognised, many of them marked by the tiled roof, and often the tower, of the village church, which shines out distinctly amid the brown thatched roofs of most of the houses. This view from the summit of the capital is certainly an unrivalled one, in Madagascar at least, for its variety and extent, as well as for the human interest of its different parts, as shown by the large population, the great area of cultivated land, the embanked rivers, and the streams and water-channels for irrigation seen in every direction.

Springtime: September and October.—With the early days of September we may usually say that springtime in Imèrina fairly sets in, and that the year in its natural aspects properly commences. By a true instinct, arising doubtless from long observation of the change of the seasons, the Malagasy call this time Lòhataona—i.e. “the head, or beginning, of the year”—when nature seems to awake from the comparative deadness of the cold and dry winter months, during which the country has looked bare and uninviting, but now begins again to give promise of fertility and verdure. The keen cold winds and drizzly showers of the past few weeks give place to warmer air and clearer skies, and although usually there is but little rain during September, the deciduous trees begin to put forth their leaves, and flower-buds appear as heralds of the fuller display of vegetable life which will be seen after the rains have fallen.

The great rice-plain to the west of Antanànarìvo still looks, during the early days of the Lòhataona, bare and brown; but, if we examine the prospect more closely, we shall see that in various places, where the plain borders the low rising grounds on which the villages are built, there are bright patches of vivid green. These are the kètsa grounds or smaller rice-fields, where the rice is first sown thick and broadcast, and where it grows for a month or two before being planted out in the larger fields, which are divided from each other by a low bank of earth, a few inches broad and only a foot or two in height.

As the season advances, the people everywhere begin to be busy digging up their rice-fields, both large and small, the clods being piled up in heaps and rows in order to give the soil the benefit of exposure to the sun and air. All this work is done by the native long-handled and long and narrow bladed spade, driven into the ground by the weight of the handle, as the Malagasy wear no shoes and so could not drive down the spade by the foot, in European fashion, while the plough is still an unknown implement to them. The water-courses, by which water is brought to every rice-plot, are now being repaired in all directions. The chief supply of water is from the springs found at the head of almost every valley, which is carefully led by channels cut and embanked round the curves of the hillsides, being often taken thus for a considerable distance from its source. Eventually this little canal resolves itself into a small stream traversing the valley, from which smaller channels convey the water to every field, so as to moisten the clods after they have been dug over.

The water-supply for the great Bétsimitàtatra plain is derived from the Ikòpa river and its many tributaries. Canals tap these rivers at various points, in order to irrigate the fields at lower levels farther down their course. A large quantity of water is thus diverted from the rivers during September and October, so that the smaller streams are almost dry, and even the Ikòpa and its affluents, good-sized rivers at other times of the year, then become shallow and easily fordable.

Before the end of October a large extent of the great plain, especially to the north and north-west, is completely planted with rice; and a green level, looking like one vast lawn, stretches away for many miles in this direction, without any break or visible divisions. This green is the vàry alòha, or “former rice,” the first crop, which will become ripe in the month of January, or early in February. Smaller expanses of bright green appear in other directions also, especially along the courses of the rivers, but a considerable extent of the plain directly to the west of the capital is still russet-brown in colour, and will not be planted until a month or two later. From this will come the later rice-crop, the (vàry) vàky ambiàty, which is planted in November or December and becomes fit for cutting about April. This latter crop is so called because the flowering of the ambiàty (Vernonia appendiculata) shrub, about November, gives notice to the people that planting-time has come. This shrub is very conspicuous about this time of the year from its masses of white—slightly tinged with purple—flowers.

The kètsa grounds are covered before sowing with a layer of wood and straw ashes, so that they have quite a black appearance. Before this, however, the clods have been broken up and worked by the spade into a soft mud, with an inch or two of water over all, and on this the grain is sown broadcast, springing up in two or three weeks’ time and looking like a brilliant emerald carpet.

There are usually a few heavy showers about the end of September or the early part of October, which are called rànonòrana màmpisàra-taona—i.e. “rain dividing the year”; but occasionally no rain falls until the rainy season regularly commences, so it is dry and dusty everywhere, the ground cracks, and everything seems thirsting for moisture. The heat increases as the sun gets more vertical, although the nights are pleasantly cool. Yet notwithstanding the dry soil the trees begin to blossom. Most conspicuous among them is the Cape lilac (Melia azederach), a tree introduced from South Africa about eighty or ninety years ago by the first L.M.S. missionaries, and now thoroughly naturalised in the interior of Madagascar. It grows to be a good-sized tree, and many hundreds of them are to be seen in and around Antanànarìvo, making the place gay with their profusion of pale greyish-lilac flowers, and fragrant with their strong perfume.

There are many large orchards in Imèrina, planted chiefly with mango-trees and presenting a refreshing mass of evergreen all the year round. But at this time, when looking from a little distance, the green of the leaves is largely mingled with a tinting of reddish-brown, caused by masses of flowers, in spikes, chiefly in the upper part of the trees. Later on the purplish tint of the new leaves gives another shade of colour. The produce of these trees is an excellent fruit; and there are three or four varieties of it, one kind, “the stone mango,” being more globular in shape; another, “the satin-mango,” being smaller, like a large plum, with a delicate flavour and scent. Another most widely grown fruit is the peach, which is more used cooked than eaten raw; and others are the bìbàsy or loquat, the quince, the rose-apple, the orange, and the ròtra, a good-sized tree with a profusion of small black pear-shaped fruits, somewhat astringent when eaten raw, but excellent for cooking and for preserves. The vine also is largely cultivated, chiefly a black variety; while bananas and plantains and pine-apples are to be had all the year through.

The low banks of earth which form the boundary walls of plantations are largely planted with a species of Euphorbia, of which there are two varieties, one with brilliant scarlet bracts and the other of pale yellow tint, the leaves appearing on the prickly stems later on.

As the season advances the people burn the grass over the hillsides and open moors, as we saw at Ambàtomànga when coming up the country. There can be no doubt that to this practice is largely attributable the bare and treeless appearance of the central provinces. The young trees which would spring up, especially in the hollows and sheltered places, have no chance against the yearly fires which sweep over the country, and the little vegetation which has held its own is constantly liable to be lessened as time goes on. Sometimes a dozen fires, long curving lines of flame, may be seen at once in different directions, and these give a strangely picturesque appearance to the nights of springtime in Imèrina.

The weather often becomes very hot and sultry before the rains come on, and the usually bright clear skies and pure atmosphere of other months are exchanged for thick oppressive days, when the distant hills disappear altogether, and the nearer ones seem quite distant in the dense haze. This is probably due, to a great extent, to the grass-burning just described, and also to the frequent burning of the forest away to the east. As the weather gets warmer a few birds come up from the wooded regions of the country, and wherever there is a small patch of wood the oft-repeated cry of the Kankàfotra, the Madagascar cuckoo, may be heard, much resembling the syllables “kow-kow, kow-kow-koo.”

And here we must notice more fully the birds to be seen in Imèrina. They are few compared with those in the warmer and forest regions, and are mostly of powerful flight, principally birds of prey, swifts, swallows and water-birds. The two coast regions—east and west—are, on the contrary, well peopled with birds of all sorts, and while the greater part of these inhabit indifferently one or the other region, there are a certain number which have their habitat almost exclusively in one region only, and give it its special characteristics. There are also some which keep to a still more limited area, not going beyond a very restricted range. As far as is at present known, two hundred and ten species of birds have been found in Madagascar; and the very special character of its avi-fauna may be seen from the fact that it includes forty-one genera and a hundred and twenty-four species, which are all peculiar to the island.

The rapacious birds of the country comprise twenty-two species, the majority being hawks, kites and buzzards, with several owls and two eagles. The most common bird of this order is the Papàngo or Egyptian kite, a large hawk found all over the island. It may be seen every day flying gracefully along in search of lizards and snakes, and the mice, rats and small birds which form its chief food, and continually swooping down upon its prey. When the long dry grass is being burned on the downs the papàngo may be noticed sweeping backwards and forwards close to the edge of the blazing grass, so as to pick up the smaller creatures escaping the advancing flames, or those which have been overtaken by them and killed. I have occasionally observed hundreds of these birds in the neighbourhood of Ambòhimànga, describing great circles, at an immense height, and have wondered how such large numbers could obtain food. This kite is the dread of the country-dwelling Malagasy, for it swoops down on their chickens and is only scared away by their loud cries and execrations. From these habits comes one of its provincial names, Tsimalàho—i.e. “the one who does not ask,” but takes without saying “by your leave.” It is constantly seen in company with the white-necked crows, and, like them, feeds near the villages, especially near where the oxen are killed.

Another very widely spread rapacious bird is the little lively and noisy Hìtsikìtsika or kestrel, which is found in or about every village, often perched on the gable “horns” of the houses, or even on the extreme point of the lightning conductors. It is by no means shy, and one can sometimes approach it quite closely and see its bright fearless eyes, before it darts away. It is fond of the same resting-place and, after a noisy chatter with its mate, takes a sweeping flight for a few hundred yards and returns to its former condition. Several native proverbs refer to the kestrel’s quick restless flight and its frequent habit of hovering aloft, poised almost motionless, or with an occasional quivering of the wings, which, in Malagasy idiom, is called “dancing,” for the native dances consist as much in a graceful motion of the hands as in that of the feet. Among some tribes, or families, the kestrel is a tabooed bird and it is crime to kill it.

Another hawk worth noticing, although much less common than the two previously mentioned ones, is the lesser falcon, a small but very courageous bird, which has long attracted the attention of the Malagasy for its swiftness. The native name, Vòromahèry, or “Powerful bird,” is also that of the tribe of Hova Malagasy who inhabit the capital and its near neighbourhood, and this falcon also was adopted as a crest or emblem by the native government, and its figure was engraved on their official seals. Its flight is extremely rapid, more like that of an arrow than that of a bird.

Many of the Malagasy hawks are beautiful birds, with horizontal bars of alternate light and dark colour on breast and tail; but perhaps the most handsome of them all is the Rayed Gymnogene, which is of a pearly-grey colour, barred with black, while on the tail and quill feathers are broad bands of pure white and intensely glossy black. This bird stands high, having very long legs, with a crest of feathers on the crown and neck.

As the end of October draws near the people are busily at work, not only in the rice-fields, but also repairing their houses, mending their grass or rush roofs, and hurrying on their sun-dried brick or clay building before the heavy rains fall. The majority of native houses are of those materials, and everything must be finished, or at least well protected from the weather, before the rainy season comes on. The water-courses, too, need attention, and the river banks must be repaired, lest a succession of heavy rains should swell the streams, break through the embankments and flood the rice-plains.

Summer: November, December, January and February.—Summer in central Madagascar is not only the hot season, but it is also the rainy season, very little rain falling at any other time of the year. It is accordingly called by the Malagasy Fàhavàratra—i.e. “thunder-time”—since almost all heavy rain is accompanied by a thunderstorm; and taking the average of a good many years, this season may be said to commence at the beginning of November.

As the sun gets every day more nearly vertical at noon, on his passage towards the southern tropic, the heat increases, and the electric tension of the air becomes more oppressive. For a week or more previous to the actual commencement of the rains, the clouds gather towards evening, and the heavens are lighted up at night by constant flashes of lightning. But at length, after a few days of this sultry weather, towards midday the huge cumuli gather thickly over the sky and gradually unite into a dense mass, purple-black in colour, and soon the thunder is heard. It rapidly approaches nearer and nearer, the clouds touching the lower hills, then down darts the forked lightning, followed by the roar of the thunder, and presently a wild rush of wind, as if it came from all quarters at once, tells us that the storm is upon us, and then comes the rain, in big heavy drops for a few seconds and soon in torrents, as if the sluice-gates of the clouds were opened. The lightning is almost incessant; now and then, in one of the nearer crashes, it is as if the whole artillery of heaven were playing upon the doomed earth; and for half-an-hour or so there is often hardly any interval between the crashing and reverberations of the thunder peals, the hills around the capital echoing back the roar from the clouds. Certainly a heavy thunderstorm in Madagascar is an awfully grand and glorious spectacle and is not without a considerable element of danger too, especially for anyone caught in the storm in the open, or in a house unprotected by a lightning-conductor. Every house of any pretensions in the central provinces has this safeguard, for every year many people are killed by lightning, some while walking on the road, and others in houses unprotected by a conductor. One often hears of strange freaks, so to speak, played by the lightning; for instance, one of our college students, travelling with wife and children to the Bétsiléo, was killed instantaneously, as well as a slave near him, when sitting in a native house, while a child he was nursing at the time escaped with a few burns only. A missionary of the Norwegian Society was struck by lightning, which melted the watch in his pocket, drove the nails out of his shoes, and yet he escaped with no other harm than some burns, which eventually healed.

A large quantity of rain sometimes falls during such storms in a very short time. On one occasion three and a quarter inches fell in less than half-an-hour; and as the streets and paths through the capital were formerly all very steep, and there was no underground drainage, it may be imagined what a roar of water there was all over the city after such a storm. The three or four chief thoroughfares were transformed into the beds of rushing torrents and a series of cascades; from every compound spouted out a jet of water to join the main stream, and it used to be no easy matter to get about at all in the rush and the roar. It was no wonder that most of the highways of the capital got deeper and deeper every year. Even where there was an attempt at a rough paving, a single storm would often tear it up and pile the stones together in a big hole, with no more order than obtains in the bed of a cataract. After the rains were over, the red soil was dug away from the sides to fill up the channel cut by the torrent, and so the road gradually sank below the walls of the compounds on either side of it.[7]

The annual rainfall of Antanànarìvo is about fifty inches, December and January being the wettest months, with an average fall of ten to twelve inches each. It is very unusual for thunderstorms to occur in the morning, they mostly come on in the afternoon; and after the first heavy downpour a steady rain will often continue for three or four hours, and occasionally far into the night. It is generally bright and fine in the early morning; all vegetation is refreshed by the plentiful moisture; and the people are busy in their plantations on the sloping hillsides, digging up the softened earth for planting manioc, sweet potatoes, the edible arum, and many other vegetables.

Hail also very frequently falls during these thunderstorms; and should it be late in the season, when the rice is in ear, great damage is often done to the growing crop. A large extent of rice-field will sometimes be stripped of every grain, the stalks standing up like bare sticks. Charms against hail had therefore in the old heathen times a prominent place in the popular beliefs and, there can be little doubt, are still trusted in and used by many of the more ignorant people. Occasionally the hailstones are of very large size and kill sheep and small animals, if they are left unsheltered. I remember a storm of this kind, when the hailstones were as large as good-sized nuts, while some were cushion-shaped and hexagonal, with a hollow in the centre, and nearly one and a half inches in diameter. In other cases they have been seen as jagged lumps of ice; and it may be easily imagined that it is very unpleasant and somewhat dangerous to be exposed to such a fusillade.

Besides the thunderstorms like those just described, which come so close and are often so awful in their results, there is another kind of storm we frequently see in the rainy season which is an unmixed source of delight. This is when, for two or three hours together in the evening, a large portion of the sky is lighted up by an almost incessant shimmer of lightning, now revealing glimpses of a glory as if heaven itself were opening, and anon showing many different tiers and strata of clouds lying one behind the other, and alternately lighted up, making clear the outlines of the nearer masses of cumulus upon the brilliant background. How wonderful are the different colours of this lightning! intense white, like glowing metal, now red, and now violet; and not less wonderful are its forms! now it is a zigzag, which plunges downwards, now it branches out horizontally, and again it darts upwards into the clouds; and then, for a few moments, there is nothing but an incessant quiver and shimmer, which lights up first one quarter of the heavens, and then another, and then the whole. All the time no thunder is heard from this celestial display, but it is most fascinating to watch the infinitely varied effects of light and darkness, till we sometimes feel as if a “door was opened in heaven,” and we could catch a glimpse of “the excellent glory” within.

Something may be said here about the native division of time. Although the European months and year have become generally known and used, the old style of months are still recognised to some extent by the Malagasy. Their months were lunar ones, and therefore their year was eleven days shorter than ours, their New Year’s Day coming consequently at different times, from the first to the twelfth month, until the cycle was complete after thirty-three years. When I first came to Madagascar the Malagasy New Year began in the month of March; and this style of reckoning time was kept up until the accession of the last native sovereign, Queen Rànavàlona III., in 1883. The Malagasy appear never to have made any attempt, by the insertion of intercalary days or any other contrivance, to fill up their shorter year to the true time occupied in the earth’s annual revolution round the sun; for of course they must have noticed that their New Year came at quite different periods after a few years. The names of the Malagasy months are all Arabic in origin, as indeed are also the days of the week (Alahàdy (Sunday), Alàtsinainy (Monday), Talàta (Tuesday), Alarobìa (Wednesday), etc.); but it is curious that the month names are not the Arabic names of the months, but are those of the constellations of the Zodiac. Thus, Alàhamàdy is the Ram, Adaoro is the Bull (daoro = taurus), Adizaoza is the Twins, and so on. This appears to have arisen from the connection between astrology and the divination (sikìdy) introduced by the Arabs several centuries ago.

The New Year was the great festival of the Malagasy and was observed on the first day of the first month, Alàhamàdy. It was called the Fandròana or “Bathing,” and was kept up until the French conquest in 1895, but since then has been superseded by the Fête of the French Republic on 14th July every year. The ancient customs were, however, very interesting, and were chiefly the following:—(1) The lighting of little bundles of dried grass at dusk on the evenings of the last day of the old year and the first of the new one. These fires, possibly a relic of the old fire-worship, were called harèndrina, and formed one of the most pleasing features of the festival in the gathering darkness of the evening. (2) The ceremonial Royal Bathing at the great palace, when all the principal people of the kingdom were present, as well as representative foreigners, was the most prominent of all the ceremonies, giving, as it did, the name to the whole festival. At a fixed time in the evening the queen retired behind curtains fixed at the north-east (the sacred corner) of the great hall and bathed in a silver bath; after which she emerged, robed and crowned, and, carrying a horn of water in her hands, went down the assembly to the door, sprinkling the people as she passed. (She would playfully give some of us an extra splash as she went along.) (3) On the following day came the killing of oxen, doubtless the most important of all the observances in the estimation of the people generally, at any rate of the poorer classes, who then got, for once a year at least, a plentiful supply of beef. Presents of the newly killed meat were sent about in all directions to relatives and friends, and feasting and merry-making prevailed for several days among all classes. (4) For some time previous to the actual festival it was customary for the Malagasy to visit their elders and superiors in rank, bringing presents of money, fowls, fruit, etc., using certain complimentary formulæ and expressions of good wishes.

The rains which usually fall in November soon make the hills and downs, which have got so brown and dry during the cold season, become green again. Especially does the fresh grass brighten those portions of the hillsides where the withered grass and fern had been burnt two or three months before; and although, as already noticed, wild flowers are not so plentiful or prominent in Madagascar as they are in European countries, there are several kinds which now make their appearance and give some beauty to the scene. Among these are the vònènina (Vinca rosea), with large pink flowers; the avòko (Vigna angivensis), bright crimson; the nìfinakànga (Commelyna madagascarica), deep blue; several small vetch-like plants with yellow flowers; many others with minute yellow compound flowers, and some few other kinds. A beautiful scarlet gladiolus is seen sparingly on the downs, as well as a conspicuous and handsome white flower, with a long tubular calyx, very like a petunia.