A FEW years ago I was invited by the Friends’ Foreign Missionary Association to accompany one of their missionaries, Mr Louis Street, on a journey to some of the southern portions of Madagascar. The object of this journey was twofold: firstly, to visit the scattered Christian congregations connected with the London Missionary Society, and to preach to and teach the people; and secondly, to gain some more accurate information as to the geography and physical features of the south-eastern provinces, and the dialects and customs of the different tribes inhabiting those parts of the great island. At that period (in the seventies) Madagascar was still unmapped and only very partially explored. A very large proportion of the country was still a terra incognita; so that missionary journeys away from the neighbourhood of the capital had all the charm of novelty and exploration. Its physical geography, its geology, and its botany and natural history were all practically unknown; so I looked forward with intense interest to seeing new provinces and new people; nor was I disappointed in this expectation.

Like all journeys in Madagascar until about twelve years ago, this one was made by the native conveyance, the filanjàna or light palanquin (see Chapters II. and III.), and also, as will be seen, by frequent voyages in canoes. And although filanjàna travelling, like all sublunary things, had its drawbacks, I always enjoyed that mode of getting over the ground. But in setting off on a journey which was to last for several weeks, it was not always easy to get started. You might engage your men for two or three weeks beforehand; you might advance money to keep a hold on them; you might even induce them to deposit a small sum with you as security; but one was never quite sure that every man had arrived, and was going along with you, until one had got clear away at least half-a-day’s journey. All sorts of excuses would be made, or no reason at all be given, especially if the journey was to be through a part of the island not often traversed. The bearers were easily hired, but not so easily secured. One man not turning up, another would go to seek for him, and he, in turn, would have to be hunted for by his companions.

Travelling in Madagascar, at least by the main lines of road, is fast losing its former characteristics. Along the easy gradients, the bridged streams, and the embankment-crossed swamps traversed now by good highroads, one is apt to forget how our bearers used to climb up steep and rugged ascents, ford rivers, sometimes up to their necks in rushing waters, and flounder through morasses. In fact, the bearers are becoming somewhat demoralised by these easy and smooth roads, and we now need to take a ride “across country” to realise what our early experiences here were.[26] Mr Street and I, however, managed to get a number of men, about fifty in all, to start with us; and as we were not at all sure of finding native huts to stay in all through our route, we took a tent with us, as well as provisions and clothes, and books to give away to the people who could read them. Towards the end of May we left the capital for our southern journey.

One more word of preface to this chapter. Like the tour around the Antsihànaka province, already described, this journey was, first of all, a missionary one; and although I shall not trouble my readers with details of this kind, it must be understood that my companions and I took every opportunity we had of speaking, not only to congregations, but also to any small gathering of people we came across, of the great and glad truths of the Gospel, of which we were the messengers.

I shall not describe here the route between Antanànarìvo and Fianàrantsòa: the elevated tract of bare table-land, more than six thousand feet above the sea; the cultivated valleys of the three or four chief rivers; the green pleasant basins of Ambòsitra and Ambòhinàmboàrina; the enormous rocks of Angàvo, and the belt of grey-lichened forest above Nàndihìzana. There were, however, three points which struck me in the Bétsiléo province as being very different from what we see in Imèrina. First, was the much bolder and grander scenery; the mountains are higher in the south, and the gneiss and granite rocks rise up in stupendous masses of stone, such as we do not often see in the northern province.

Then there was the elaborate system of rice cultivation, far surpassing anything that can be seen in Imèrina. This was noticeable after four days’ journey, but it appeared to be carried to the highest point of perfection in the wide valley south of Ambòsitra. Not only are the valleys and hollows terraced, as in Imèrina—the concave portions of the low hills and lower slopes of the high hills—but the convex portions also are stepped up like a gigantic staircase for a great height. It was a pleasant sight to see, speaking of industry and skill and practical knowledge of hydrostatics; for how water could be brought to some of the lower elevations surrounded by lower ground was more than we could discover. Many of these were terraced up to their highest point, the narrow lines of rice-plot running round them in concentric circles, so that there was not a square yard of ground left unproductive.

The third particular in which the Bétsiléo country differs—although the past tense would be now more appropriate—from Imèrina is in the variety and ornamental character of the tombs and other memorials of the dead. Leaving out of consideration the modern stone tombs erected in the vicinity of the capital, it is a remarkable fact that there is no native Hova style of carving or ornamentation. Neither in their dwellings nor their tombs, neither in their household utensils nor their weapons, does there ever seem to have existed among the natives of Imèrina anything like indigenous art. But in Bétsiléo there is carving both in the houses and the tombs; the central posts of the former are elaborately ornamented, and also portions of the exterior woodwork; and the curious massive timber posts, with framework for holding the skulls and horns of bullocks killed at funerals, have a variety of decoration which is well worthy of study.

The first thing that attracted my attention in travelling south, after four or five days’ journey, was that the upright stones placed near graves were not the rough undressed slabs common in Imèrina, but were finely dressed and squared and ornamented with carving. Coming after that to Ambòsitra, I first met with one of the memorial posts just mentioned. This was a piece of timber, seven or eight inches square and about ten feet high, with pieces of wood projecting from a little below the top, so as to form a kind of stage. Each face of the post was elaborately carved with different patterns arranged in squares. Some of these were concentric circles, a large one in the centre, with smaller ones filling up the angles; others had a circle with a number of little bosses on them; others had a kind of leaf ornament, and in others parallel lines were arranged in different directions. The narrow spaces dividing these squares from each other had in some cases an ornament like the Norman cheiron, and in others, something similar to the Greek wave-like scroll. The whole erection with its ornamentation bore a strong resemblance to the old runic stones, or the manorial crosses of Ireland and the Scottish highlands.

A day or two’s journey farther south brought us to a tract of country where there was a profusion of carved memorials scattered along the roadside, and in all directions visible on either hand. And on reaching a rounded green hill west of the road, the old and deserted village of Ikangàra, we saw that there was a large number of tombs and memorial posts close together, so we went to inspect them more minutely. Within a short distance were some forty or fifty tombs, and on further examination there appeared to be at least half-a-dozen different kinds:

(1) The largest tombs—there were two of them—were of small flat stones, built in a square of some twenty to twenty-five feet, and about five feet high. But all around them was a railing of posts and rails, all elaborately carved with the patterns just described.

(2) Another kind of tomb was formed by a square stone structure, about twelve feet each way and four or five feet high, but on the top was an enclosure of carved posts and lintels about eight feet high, with a single carved post in the centre.

(3) A third kind of monument was a massive block of granite about ten feet high, with carved posts at the corners and touching them, and connected by cross-pieces; on these the skulls and horns of the bullocks killed at the funeral of the person commemorated were fixed.

(4) Another kind of memorial was a massive square post of wood, about twenty feet high and fifteen inches square, carved on all four sides from top to bottom. There were four or five of these enormous posts here; and in one case there was a pair of them, as if to form a kind of gateway.

(5) Still another kind was a great block of dressed granite, with iron hooping round the top, in which were fixed a dozen or more pairs of slender iron horns.

All the way along the road to Ambòhinàmboàrina we came across different combinations of memorial posts, and of dressed fine white granite in upright blocks, in many cases arranged in couples, so that they were very conspicuous all over the surrounding country. Before leaving the subject of ornamentation among the Bétsiléo, I may notice that the window shutters of their houses, the wooden fixed bedstead—looking more like a cupboard than a sleeping-place—and other portions of the interior, are (or were) elaborately carved with the patterns already mentioned and other designs.[27]

In the early part of June we left the Bétsiléo capital for the south, intending if possible to make our way through the forest to the south-east coast, and thence travel to Fort Dauphine, the southernmost Hova military station. The route south from Fianàrantsòa is for many miles through a valley between lofty hills; and there one gradually ascends to a point where the valley ends, and at a place called Ivàtoàvo (“high rock”) one gets a most extensive prospect, of a comparatively level plain stretching away for many miles, and dotted all over with the green ring-shaped vàla or homesteads of the Bétsiléo. This plain is surrounded with the grandest and boldest mountains, many of them rising sheer from the level in many hundred feet of bare gneiss rock, and in the most picturesque outlines. To the north-west one lofty spire of rock has a flat-topped head, much resembling the Pieter Botha mountain in Mauritius. I was afterwards told that it was formerly obligatory on a young man wishing to marry a girl from the district that he should carry his bride on his back to the summit of this rock, and bring her down again. It appeared as if one might almost as well attempt to scale a church spire; but probably there are crevices and hollows which would make such a feat not altogether impossible.

Our Sunday at a village on the plain was employed in our usual way, preaching there, and visiting other places. After speaking at a short service myself, I left my companion at midday to go to Iàritsèna, a village about five hundred feet above the level; but it really looked insignificant compared with the towering rocks beyond it. The grand and varied forms of the mountains all around this plain filled me with an exultant kind of delight. To the south were a crowd of mountain-tops, peak beyond peak, with the greatest variety of outline: one had the appearance of a colossal truncated spire; another had a jagged saw-like ridge, another was like a pyramid with huge steps, and another was like an enormous dome; but the varieties were endless, and, as I passed along, the combinations of the giant masses of bare rock changed every minute. Their summits were never long free from clouds, and the changing effects of sunlight and cloud shadow could only have been caught by the rapid use of a camera. The summits of many of the peaks must be at least three thousand feet above the plain. These “everlasting hills,” these “strong foundations of the earth,” recalled passages in the Psalms and the Prophets, speaking of Him whose “righteousness is like the great mountains.”

At my little village congregation this afternoon, many of the girls and women wore a circular ornament suspended from their necks; this was formed of the end of a conus shell ground down and generally with a red bead in the centre. This kind of decoration, called félana, is also worn by men among the Sàkalàva, but on the side of their temples, and by the Bàra people on the crown of their heads.

Until taking this journey I had not seen in any number the pretty little parakeet of which Madagascar possesses a peculiar species (Psittacula madagascariensis). But we noticed a large flock of these birds one day; and their light green plumage, with whitish breasts and greyish-white heads, render them rather conspicuous. They go in large flocks, often as many as a hundred together, and sometimes do considerable damage to the rice crops. The two sexes of this parakeet show great affection for each other, the pair sitting close together on their perch, from which habit they are often called love-birds.

Two species of parrot are among the denizens of the Malagasy woods almost all over the country. These parrots are both of sober plumage, one being dark grey in colour, and the other slaty-black. But they are both intelligent birds, and can easily be taught to speak a few words and to whistle a tune. Their long whistling cry, as if going up the gamut, may be frequently heard in the outskirts of the woods. The grey species (Coracopsis obscura), which is the larger of the two, is fàdy or sacred with the chiefs of the Vèzo Sàkalàva, as they say that one of their ancestors was saved from death by hearing the shrill piercing cries of a flock of these birds. The black species (Coracopsis nigra) is about a third less in size. Both kinds are more terrestrial and less arboreal in their habits than most parrots, nor do they make much use of their claws to convey food to the mouth.

The following day, passing over a river close by Ambòhimandròso, we had a most awkward bridge to cross. The native engineer had made it in two spans, not, however, in a straight line, but forming almost a right angle with each other. There were two or three massive balks of timber; but as these were not on a level, and some had slipped down three or four feet, the passage over was neither easy nor pleasant. Many of our bearers hesitated a good deal, as the bridge was sixteen to eighteen feet above the water, which roared like a mill-race between the rough pier and the river banks.

All about this neighbourhood we noticed great numbers of ant-hills, of a much larger size than any we had seen elsewhere. They are conical mounds of a yard or so high, and are made by a white or yellowish ant, the one spoken of in a well-known Malagasy nursery tale. Breaking off a piece of one of the mounds, the ants could be seen in a state of great excitement, running in and out of the circular galleries which traverse their city. There are vast numbers of these ants in one ant-hill; they have a queen, who is nearly an inch long, while her subjects are not half that size. A serpent is said to live in many of these ant-nests, and the people maintain that it is eventually eaten by the inhabitants.

Between the point we had now reached and the sea is a great wooded and rounded mountain which we could see about twenty miles away, and which we found was the celebrated Ambòndrombé, the Malagasy Hades, in which they believed that the souls of their ancestors had their abode. There are said to be large caves in the mountain, and it is regarded with much superstitious fear by the people. The mountain looked dark and gloomy, and has a very regularly curved outline from north to south, looking like the segment of an immense circle.

About twenty miles to the east of our route, although perfectly hidden by the intervening rugged country and lines of forest-covered hills, is a very strongly defended Tanàla town called Ikòngo, a place which maintained its independence of Hova domination until the French conquest. With considerable difficulty and some personal risk, my friend, Mr G. A. Shaw, managed to gain permission to visit this stronghold and introduce Christian teaching. The native chief, who became very friendly, wished to become closely allied to him by the custom of fàto-drà, or fàti-drà. This is a curious ceremony, in use among many Malagasy peoples, by which persons of different tribes or nationalities become bound to one another in the closest possible fashion. The name for it of fàto-drà—i.e. “bound by blood”—denotes that its object is to make those entering into the covenant to become as brothers, devoted to each other’s welfare, and ready to make any sacrifice for the other, since they thus become of one blood.

The ceremony consists in taking a small quantity of blood from the breast or side of each contracting party; this is mixed with other ingredients, stirred up with a spear-point, and then a little of the strange mixture is swallowed by each of them. Imprecations are uttered against those who shall be guilty of violating the solemn engagement thus entered into. A few Europeans, who have overcome their natural disgust to the ceremonial, and to whom it has been a matter of great importance to keep on good terms with some powerful chief, have occasionally consented to make this covenant. Thus the celebrated French scientist, M. Alfred Grandidier, became a brother by blood with Zomèna, a chief of the south-western Tanòsy, in order to gain his good will and help in proceeding farther into the interior. But in his case the blood was not taken from the contracting parties, but from an ox sacrificed for the purpose; the ceremony is then called famaké. In this case, a pinch of salt, a little soot, a leaden ball, and a gold bead were put into the blood, which was mixed with water. Sometimes pulverised flint, earth and gunpowder are added to the mixture. In the case of Count Benyowski, who in 1770 was made king of a large tribe on the eastern coast, he and the principal chiefs sucked a little blood from each others’ breasts. The Hova formerly followed a similar custom, but with some variations; and so lately as 1897 a high French official made a somewhat similar covenant, with a principal chief in the extreme south of the island. The fàto-drà has doubtless been observed by the various tribes in all parts of Madagascar, but there appears to have been a good deal of difference in the details of the ceremonial attending it.

We spent a day at Imàhazòny, the last Hova military post in this direction, before plunging into the unknown route across the forest to the coast. The people from the little vàla (homesteads) came running out to see us as we went by, most of them having never seen a white face before. We noticed how different the Bétsiléo dialect is from the Hova form of Malagasy; the n in the latter is always nasal (ng) in the former; while numerous words are shorter than their equivalents as spoken in Imèrina; and the consonantal changes are numerous. Besides this, the vocabulary is very different for many things and actions. About two hours’ ride on the following morning brought us to the large village of Ivàlokiànja. We went into a house, the best in the village, for our lunch; it was the largest there, but was not so large as our tent (eleven feet square), and the walls were not six feet high. The door was a small square aperture, one foot ten inches wide by two feet four inches high, and its threshold two feet nine inches from the ground; so that getting into most Bétsiléo houses is quite a gymnastic feat, and it is difficult to understand how people could put themselves to so much needless inconvenience. Close to it, at the end of the house, was another door, or window (it was difficult to say which, as they are all pretty much the same size!), and opposite were two small openings about a foot and a half square. The hearth was opposite the door, and the fixed bedstead was in what is the window corner (north-west) in Hova houses. In this house was the first example I had seen of decorative carving in Malagasy houses; the external faces of the main posts being carved with a simple but effective ornament of squares and diagonals. There was also other ornamentation, much resembling the English Union Jack. The gables were filled in with a neat plaited work of split bamboo. The majority of the houses in this and most of the Bétsiléo villages are only about ten or twelve feet long by eight or nine feet wide, and the walls from three to five feet high. Hereabouts, the doors seem generally to face the north or north-west, and the house runs nearly east and west. Hova houses of the old style, on the contrary, are always placed with their length running north and south, and their single door and window facing the west—that is, on the lee-side of the house.

As Ambinàny, the Tanàla[28] chief, whose village we were bound for, did not make his appearance, we went off in the afternoon to another village, Iòlomàka, about three or four miles away to the south-east. It was a cold unpleasant ride in the drizzling rain. We reached the village, which is situated on a bare hill, in an hour and a quarter, and with some difficulty found a tolerably level place on which to pitch the tent, but everything was wet. The rain came down faster than ever, and began to come through the canvas in some places. During the afternoon we in our tent formed for the villagers a free, and evidently popular, exhibition, which might have been entitled, “The Travelling Foreigners in their Tent.” We and our belongings, and our most trivial actions, were the subject of intensest interest to the people. They came peeping in and, uninvited, took their seats to gaze. I suspect they thought we travelled in a style of Oriental magnificence, for my companion’s gorgeous striped rug evidently struck them as being the ne plus ultra of earthly grandeur. But we did not look upon ourselves this evening quite in that light; for the slightly higher ground on two sides of the tent led the water into the structure, and there was soon a respectable-sized pool on my friend’s side of the tent, above which the boxes had to be raised by stones and tent-hammers; while the drip upon our beds raised the probability that we might be able to take our baths in the morning before getting up. It was our dampest experience hitherto of tent life.

The following evening found us at Ivòhitròsa, after one of the most difficult and fatiguing journeys we had ever taken in Madagascar. It was quite dark when we arrived here, wet, weary, muddy and hungry, having eaten no food since the morning.

But to begin at the beginning. Bed was so much the most comfortable place, with a wet tent, a small pond at one end of it, and a mass of mud at the other, that we did not turn out so early or so willingly as usual, especially as there was a thick mist and heavy drizzle, as there had been all night. The general public outside, however, evidently thought it high time the exhibition opened for a morning performance; and so, without our intending it, there was a performance, which, if there had been a daily paper at Iòlomàka, might have been described as consisting of five acts or scenes, as follows:—Scene first: Distinguished foreigners are seen lying in bed, so comfortably tucked up that they feel most unwilling to get out on to the wet and muddy floor. Curtains only half drawn (by an eager public) during this act. Scene second: Somewhat of a misnomer, as D. F. were, by the exercise of some ingenuity, not seen during the operations of bathing and washing. Scene third: D. F. seen by admiring public—who again admitted themselves—in the act of brushing their hair and performing their toilet. Scene fourth: D. F. seen at their breakfast; the variety of their food, dishes, plates, etc., a subject of mute amazement. Scene fifth and last: D. F. seen rapidly packing up all their property for their approaching departure. N.B.—Probably their last appearance on this stage. We packed up in the heavy drizzle, and fortunately, just as we were about to start, three or four Tanàla came up and agreed to be our guides. We had to wait until they had their rice, but at last we got away, soon after ten o’clock, rather too late as it turned out.

Our way for more than two hours was through the outskirts of the forest: a succession of low hills partially covered with wood, and divided from each other by swampy valleys. In these we had two or three times to cross deepish streams by bridges of a single round pole, a foot or two under water, a ticklish proceeding, which all our luggage bearers did not accomplish successfully. After crossing a stream by the primitive bridge of a tree which had fallen half over the water, we entered the real forest, our general direction being to the south-east.

And now for an hour and a half we had to pass through dense forest by a narrow footpath, where no filanjàna (palanquin) could be carried (at least with its owner seated on it). Up and down, down and up, stooping under fallen trees, or climbing over them, soon getting wet through with the dripping leaves on either hand, and the mud and water underfoot—we had little time to observe anything around us, lest a tree root or a slippery place should trip us up. At two-fifteen we came to an open clearing, and thought our difficulties were over, but presently we plunged into denser forest than ever, and up and down rougher paths. Notwithstanding the danger of looking about, it was impossible to avoid admiring the luxuriance of the vegetation. Many of the trees were enormously high, and so buttressed round their trunks that they were of great girth at the ground. The tree-ferns seemed especially large, with an unusual number of fronds; and the creeper bamboo festooned the large trees with its delicate pinnate leaves.

It soon became evident that we were descending, and that pretty rapidly. For a considerable distance we had a stream on our left hand, which roared and foamed over a succession of rapids, going to the south-east; and every now and then we caught glimpses of the opening in the woods made by the stream, presenting lovely bits of forest scenery in real tropical luxuriance. The sun shone out for a few minutes, but presently it clouded over, and heavy rain came on. The increasing roar of waters told of an unusually large fall, and in a few minutes we came down an opening where we could see the greater part of it, a large body of water rushing down a smooth slope of rock about a hundred feet deep, and at an angle of forty-five degrees. Three or four times we had to cross the stream, on rocks in and out of the water, with a powerful current sweeping around and over them. We found after a while that we had come down to the side of a deep gorge in the hills which rose hundreds of feet on each side of it, and down which the stream descended rapidly by a series of grand cascades to the lower and more open country which we could see at intervals through openings in the woods.

At half-past four we emerged from the forest and came down by a steep slippery path through bush and jungle. And now there opened before us one of the grandest scenes that can be imagined. The valley, down which we had come, opened out into a tremendous hollow or bay, three or four miles across, and more than twice as long, running into the higher level of the country from which we had descended. The hills, or, rather, edges of the upper plateau, rise steeply all round this great bay, covered with wood to their summits, which are from two thousand to three thousand feet above the lower country. Between these bold headlands we could count four or five waterfalls, two of them falling in a long riband of foam several hundred feet down perpendicular faces of rock. Between the opening points of this great valley, three or four miles apart, could be seen a comparatively level undulating country, with patches of wood and the windings of the river Màtitànana. On a green hill to the north side of the valley was a group of houses, which we were glad to hear was Ivòhitròsa, our destination. This hill we found was seven hundred feet above the stream at its foot, but it looked small compared with the towering heights around it. At last we reached the bottom of the valley, crossed the stream, and presently commenced the steep ascent to the village. It was quite dark before we reached it, muddy, wet and tired out; we had been eight hours on the way, and five and a half on foot over extremely rough and fatiguing paths. The native chief and his people had overtaken us in the forest and went on first to prepare a house for us.

We found that the best dwelling in the village was ready, and a bright fire blazing on the hearth. It was with some difficulty that we got all our baggage arranged inside, for, although the largest house available, it was rather smaller than our tent, and nearly a quarter of it was occupied by the hearth and the space around it. At one side of the fire were sitting four young women, the daughters of the chief. A glance at these young ladies showed us that we had come into the territory of a tribe different from any we had yet seen. They were lightly clothed in a fine mat wrapped round their waists, but were highly ornamented on their heads, necks, and arms. A fillet of small white beads, an inch or so wide, was round their heads, fastened by a circular metal plate on their foreheads. From their necks hung several necklaces of long oval white beads and smaller red ones. On their wrists they had silver rings, and a sort of broad bracelet of small black, white, and red beads; and on every finger and on each thumb were rings of brass wire. In the glancing firelight they certainly made a striking picture of barbaric ornamentations; and notwithstanding their dark skins and numerous odd little tails of hair, some of them were comely enough. We had soon to ask them to retire in order to stow away our packages and get some tea ready. The house was raised a foot or so from the ground, the inside lined with mats, and so was a pleasant change from our damp lodgings of the previous evening.

Next morning, on opening our window, we had before us, two or three miles across the great basin or valley, three waterfalls, one descending in a long white line and almost lost in spray before it reaches the bottom. The sunlight revealed all the beauties of the scene around us, and made us long for the power to transfer to canvas or paper its chief outlines. Were such a neighbourhood as this in an accessible part of any European country, it would rapidly become famous for its scenery. We found the village of Ivòhitròsa to consist of twelve houses only, enclosed within a ròva of pointed stakes; but besides these are several rice-houses or tràno àmbo (“high houses”) mounted on posts five or six feet above the ground, each post having a circular wooden ring just under the flooring rafters, and projecting eight or nine inches, so as to prevent the rats ascending and helping themselves to rice. I sincerely wished last night that the dwelling-houses had a similar arrangement, for the rats had a most jovial night of it in our lodgings, being doubtless astonished at the number and variety of the packages just arrived. The house we are in, as well as others in the village, has carved horns at the gables, not the crossed straight timbers so called in Hova houses, but curved like bullocks’ horns. The people appear to have no slaves here, for the daughters of the chief, in all their ornaments, are pounding rice, four at one mortar.

At this part of the island the high interior plateau seems to descend by one great step to the coast plains, and not by two, as it does farther north; for our aneroid told us that we came down twenty-five hundred feet yesterday, and that the stream at the foot of this hill is only five hundred or six hundred feet above sea-level. And the two lines of forest one crosses farther on are here united into one.

The men and many of the women wear a rather high round skull-cap made of fine plait; the women wear little except a mat sewn together at the ends, so as to form a kind of sack, and fastened by a cord round the waist, and only occasionally pulled up high enough to cover the bosom. Those who are nursing infants have also a small figured mat about eighteen inches square on their backs and suspended by a cord from the neck; this is called lòndo, and is used to protect the child from the sun or rain, as it lies in a fold of the mat above the girdle. Some of the men wear a mat as a làmba, and only a few have làmbas of coarse rofìa or hemp cloth. The people here blacken their teeth with a root, which gives them an unpleasant appearance as they open their mouths; not all the teeth, however, are thus disfigured, but chiefly those at the back, leaving the front ones white; in some cases the lower teeth are alternately black and white.

The morning of one of our four days at Ivòhitròsa was employed in trying to get a good view of the largest of the waterfalls which pour down into the large valley already mentioned. Mounting a spur of the main hills, we had a good view of this chief fall up a deep gorge to the south, and so opening into the main valley as not to be visible from the village. This is certainly a most magnificent fall of water. The valley ends in a semicircular wall of rock crowned by forest, and over this pours at one leap the river Màtitànana. Knowing the heights of some of the neighbouring hills, we judged that the fall could not be less than from five hundred to six hundred feet in depth, and from the foot rises a continual cloud of spray, like smoke, with a roar which reverberates up the rocky sides of the valley; even from two or three miles’ distance, which was as near as we could get, it was a very grand sight.

While on this little excursion we had a feast of another kind. On our way home we came across a large cluster of bushes full of wild raspberries. This fruit is common on the borders of the forest, but we never before saw it in such quantities, or of so large a size, or of so sweet a taste. The Malagasy raspberry is a beautiful scarlet fruit, larger than the European kind; and while perhaps not quite equal in flavour to those grown in England, is by no means to be despised; and we were able on that day to enjoy it to our heart’s content.

During our stay at Ivòhitròsa we were surprised and delighted with the brightness and intelligence of many of the native boys. Although the dialectic differences of the Tanàla speech are many as compared with the Hova form of Malagasy, we obtained a large vocabulary from them as well as names of the forest birds and animals, and also those of trees and fruits. And as these forests and their vicinity are the home of several of the lemurs which have not yet been noticed in these pages, I will here give some particulars of four or five species.

The ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) is perhaps the best known of all the lemuridæ, from its handsomely marked tail, which is ringed with black and white bands, thus clearly distinguishing it from all the other species of the sub-order. And while almost every other lemur is arboreal, this species lives among the rocks, over which they can easily travel, but can be only followed with great difficulty. The palms of their hands are long, smooth and leather-like, and so enable these animals to find a firm footing on the slippery wet rocks. The thumbs on the hinder hands are very much smaller than those of the forest-inhabiting lemurs, as they do not need them for grasping the branches of trees. Their winter food is chiefly the fruit of the prickly pear; while in summer they subsist chiefly on wild figs and bananas. This species bears a sea voyage fairly well, so that they are often seen in Mauritius and Réunion, and even more distant places.

Another species of lemur, which inhabits the south-eastern forests, is the broad-nosed gentle lemur (Hapalemur simus). This animal is found among the bamboos, and it appears to subsist in a great measure on the young shoots of that plant. For biting and mincing up the stalks its teeth seem admirably adapted, as they are nearly all serrated cutting teeth, and are arranged so as mutually to intersect. It eats almost all the day long, and has a curious dislike of fruit. It is furnished with a remarkably broad pad on each of the hinder thumbs, so that it is able to grasp firmly even the smallest surfaces.

Perhaps the most beautiful and interesting—as well as the smallest—lemuriæ animals inhabiting Madagascar belong to the group called Cheirogale, or mouse-lemurs, of which there are seven species. As their name implies, they are very small, the dwarf species (Cheirogaleus minor) being only four inches long, with a tail of six inches. This pretty little animal is remarkable also for its large and very resplendent eyes, for the eye admits so much light at dusk that quite an unusual brilliancy is produced. The brown mouse-lemur ( Cheirogaleus major) is larger than the last-named species, being seven or eight inches long. Most, if not all, of the species live in the highest trees, and make a globular nest of twigs and leaves; they all appear to be nocturnal animals, as one might suppose from the structure of their eyes. The smallest, or dwarf, species, is said to be very shy and wild, very quarrelsome and fights very fiercely. Some of these little animals, if not all of them, have a time of summer sleep; and the tail, which is grossly fat at the beginning of that period, becomes excessively thin at its close, its fat being slowly absorbed to maintain vitality. The two (or three) species of mouse-lemur here noticed inhabit the south-eastern forest region; others appear to be confined to the north-western woods.