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Lake Ranomainty — Tangena Poison — Quails — Andevorante — River Iharoka — Comfortable Quarters — Halt for Sunday — Game of Katra — Burial-ground — Curious Coffins — Funeral Ceremonies — Memorial Stones — Cenotaphs — Ghosts — Canoes — Ambohibobazo — Marombe — Coffee-plants — Noisome Marshes — Manamboninakitra — Rats — Ranomafana — Hot Springs — River Farimbongy — Mahela — Circumcision Poles at Ampasimbe — Dancing Girls — Beforona — Ida Pfeiffer and Lambert — Babacootes — AEpyornis maximus — A Night in the Woods — Valuable Trees — Forests of Analamazaotra — Sugar Mill — Blow-Tube — Moromanga.

Saturday, 26th July.—At lialf-past eight we had formed our order of march, and were on our way by the banks of the Lake Imoasa. We passed the village of Ambila on the opposite side of the lake, where it began to rain, which it continued -to do till we arrived at the ferry across Lake Imoasa, which here joins the sea; we went over in pirogues (some of them of the frailest and rudest construction) to Andavaka Menerana (the hole of serpents), where we dried our steaming garments over a fire in one of the huts. When the rain ceased we started off again, nor halted till we came to Lake Ranomainty (Black water) near which were great quantities of sweet limes, which we found very palatable and refreshing. I also noticed several shrubs of tangena (the celebrated Malagash poison) about here. We put up a few quails, but did not get a shot. By-and-bye we came in sight of An-devorarlte, a large village, consisting of at least two hundred cottages, situated at the junction of the Lake Ranomainty and the River Iharoka.

We found a comparatively comfortable house at Ande-vorante ready for us, much larger than any we had been accustomed to before. It consisted of one large and two side rooms. The General and Bishop occupied one, and Anson and I the other of the smaller rooms, while the centre one served as a dining and sitting-room. This night Anson’s cot and my hammock were both slung from the same transverse chevron that ran along the junction of the steep roof and wall. The weight of two persons proved too much for the slightly built framework, and accordingly down we both came with a crash.

Sunday, July 27th.—Halt for the day. We felt really thankful for this day’s rest, and it was a great comfort not to be obliged to hurry through one’s breakfast, and pack directly afterwards. To-day we were able to wash and dry ourselves and our clothes. After a bathe, and breakfast, the Bishop performed divine service. A pile of champagne and brandy cases, covered with a plaid, made a reading-desk, at which he read prayers. He did not give us a sermon, which was a relief to at least some of the party, who were eager to get outside and look about them. Directly after service all, except the General, set out to see the country. The first thing that caught our attention was a group, consisting of a man and girl seated under the projecting eaves of one of the cottages, engaged in playing the game of Katra, in which they seemed to feel as absorbing an interest as the most enthusiastic amateur does in chess. The game appeared something like draughts, and was played by moving beans on a board from one hole to another, but we failed to make out its rules accurately.*

* “ This game of katra somewhat resembles draughts. A large stone or board is prepared with a given number of divisions, and small pebbles or seeds about the size of nuts, are used as the draughts or dice. The notice of this game is attended with some degree of pleasure, from having advanced one step nearer to what is intellectual in the amusements of the Malagasy. Thirty-two small square holes are cut in an oblong board used in playing this game. Boards of this kind are kept in many of the houses ; and in some places the game is followed out-of-doors, and the square holes are cut in the surface of a rock, or smooth flat stone near the native dwelling. Small stones are used in playing, and the art of the game consists in moving them from one hole to another, as the pegs are moved in the children’s game of fox and geese, until one entire row is emptied.”— W. Ellis’s Hist, of Madagascar.

We next met a group of traders from the interior with their families. The women of the party were very tastefully dressed, in little short jackets of blue cotton, stiff petticoats of striped rofia cloth, and shawls of bandana over their shoulders. Their ears were ornamented with silver ear-rings, three in each ear of different sizes.

Leaving the village we crossed the sand-hills to the south, and came to a long bar of sand which appeared to go right across the mouth of the river. We went along the top of the bar for half a mile or more; it is about the breadth of Plymouth break-water, and the running between the waves to escape the sea water reminded me much of that place. The slope of the sand is a very curious curve, on the outer side hollow, and on the inner one sloping. At last we got far enough to see the mouth of the river Iharoka, the width only about 600 yards, with apparently a calm, deep channel, perfectly practicable for navigation. After making a sketch we walked back to our temporary house, and after luncheon started again in the opposite direction to examine some tombs on the north-east of the village. These mostly consisted of groups (generally three in a group) of coffins placed side by side, and covered by a roughly constructed shed of ravenale, surrounded by palisades of some eight or ten feet in height. The coffins were made of the trunks of trees hollowed out in a horse-shoe form, covered with a V-shaped roof of boards. The coffin was supported on trestles or platforms of unhewn wood, and in front of them were generally some broken earthenware plates or dishes, and some little bits of coloured paper or cardboard, stuck into the split ends of sticks ; these last are used by the natives as fans at and before the funeral, in order to drive away the flies and insects from the corpse while it remains in the house, and on the road to the grave; they are called fiko-pana. On the highest pole of the surrounding palisade were stuck, as a memorial, the skulls and horns of the oxen killed at the funeral ceremony. The number of cattle slaughtered on these occasions depends entirely upon the rank and riches of the deceased. The natives say that the use of the afana, or funeral ceremony, is that the dead may rest quietly in his grave. This is their last act of kindness to the departed. Emblems of their profession were generally placed at the eastern end of the coffin; for instance, the prow of a canoe placed on end at the foot of one coffin suggested the untimely end of some poor boatman. At the foot of another was a simple cross neatly carved, and but lately erected, probably showing the resting-place of one who had been tortured by the tangena and died in the cause of Christianity.

Beyond these tombs was a tumulus, and on the top of it six upright conical stones of different sizes, the largest about six feet high. Opposite the centre one was a pole, and a single skull of an enormous ox with wide-spreading horns, grinned from the top. These erections are memorial pillars, though without any kind of mark or inscription on them. They are called fahatsiarovana (causing to remember). Those we saw were in memory, I understood, of six Hova officers who died here during a campaign of Radatna I. against the Betanimenas. It is customary, in general, for the comrades of Hovas to carry their bodies home; and they often bring their bones from the most distant parts of the country, and deliver them with great care to the friends of the deceased, by whom they are received with funeral solemnities.

We frequently come across cenotaphs, consisting of a low wall built on three sides of a square. These are intended for the ghosts of those who die in battle, and whose bodies have not been found. The ghosts, it is supposed, are allured to repose in sacred spots thus reared for them by the hands of friends, and thereby find that rest which otherwise they would have sought in vain, while wandering with the abhorred owls (vorondolo) and animals of ill omen in the forests, or paying unwelcome visits to their former dwellings and disturbing the survivors.

Monday, July 28th.— We were rather longer than usual this morning packing, as our halt on the previous day had induced us to get out many extra articles. By 9 a.m. sixty-four canoes were chartered to take us and our baggage up the River. Ibaroka.

We had now quitted the coast line and our march led inland. We had left Tamatave sixty miles north of us, and had come south along the beach to Andevorante, crossing three considerable rivers, the Hivondro, the Imoasa, and the Iharoka, all draining a most important and extensive tract of country.

The intervals between these rivers are filled up with the most enchanting lake scenery, which extends far to the south of Andevorante.*

* These lakes have since been explored by Captain Rooko, R.A., who, with a party in a boat, specially designed and built by himself, visited them in 1864.

After some delay we all managed to embark, and I and Meller occupied the same canoe. Meller is a most amusing companion and a first-rate botanist. He made our journey up very interesting, being able to point out all manner of rare plants, &c., that I should never have noticed. We paddled slowly along, stopping every minute for fresh specimens, so that the greater part of our fleet of canoes shot on in front. We passed the villages of Marovata, Batrasina, and Maromandia; near the latter we left the main stream of the Iharoka, and turned in a south-westerly direction along a narrow tributary by Ambohibohazo, a large government station.

Ambohibohazo

We saw no more filaos ( Casuarina equisetifolia) after leaving the eastern coast where they, abounded. Now the ravenale ( Urania speciosa), bamboos, and the dark useful rofia palm, were the characteristic trees, and filled up all the marshy and swampy bottoms between the downs, most of which were bare of vegetation. The country towards the south is more hilly and gives some sharp outlines, forming a good background to the smooth and low undulations immediately in front. The marshes in the valleys, where the streams are choked with the fallen, decayed trunks of rofias, ravenale, and other palms, are full of dark discoloured water, and exhale noisome and pestilential vapours from the decomposition of vegetable matter. The country seemed desolate and little inhabited till we came to the village of Manamboninahitra, a snug pleasant place, but with little cultivation around it.

Here we put up for the night, and the people cleared out a rice-store for us to sleep in. My hammock-lashings came down with a run, and I had to sleep on the floor. The rats, deprived of their usual supper, revenged themselves by running steeplechases over the intruders the whole night.

July 29th.—Left Mauamboninahitra about 8 a.m. showering benedictions on the rats; descending a valley, and crossing some wet paddy-fields, we had a rather stiffish ascent up a clay bank on the other side of a small rivulet, which gave us a slight foretaste of the difficulties before us. There being no regular road constructed, everybody takes his own line of country. The consequence is, that there are a number of little paths, here converging, there parallel, and in other places diverging in irregular routes.

At midday we approached Ranomafana (hot water), a village on a small tributary of the Iharoka. We visited the hot springs which are in the bed of the river, the water of which was full of glittering particles of mica. The springs came bubbling up through the fine quartz sand of which the bed of the river was composed, and the water was too hot to be pleasant—in fact, almost scalding.

After this nothing remarkable occurred in the day’s journey, and the night was passed, much as the former ones had been, in a village with a long and barbarous name.

July 30th.—We kept along the course of the river Farimbongy, a small stream with a pretty succession of deep pools, small cascades, and miniature rapids, with beautifully wooded banks. The Osmunda obtusa flourishes here, rivalling in beauty the O. regalis of England. There were many beautiful specimens of water plants, especially the lace leaf with its long streamers in the current, and its pink blossom just above the surface of the water. We now reached Mahela, which village is on the left bank of this river.

River at Mahela

Our next halt was at Ampasimbe. On arriving at this beautifully situated village, larger than any that we had passed since Andevorante, the most conspicuous objects in the long main street of low huts was a group of “ Circumcision poles,” on which the skulls and horns of the bullocks killed during the celebration of this national rite are stuck. The poles are merely the branches of large trees planted in the ground, roughly squared at the base, and with the ends of the forked branches sharpened. They are generally covered with cobwebs and lichens from disuse, and we observed them in most villages of any pretension. The celebration of this rite takes place every seven years, and this year, 1862 a.d., was the year of celebration. In consequence, however, of the year of mourning for the death of Queen Ranavola, it was celebrated privately, without any feasting or public festivity. This evening we had an opportunity of seeing the dances and hearing the songs of the Betanimena people. In many of the villages singing and dancing are much practised, and the people often assemble on fine moonlight evenings, and accompany their songs and dances with the native musical instruments, the lokanga and the valiha, or even with a simple hollow bamboo beaten with a stick, whilst the clapping of hands in constant and regular time adds effectively to the wild chorus. Five or six of the matrons of the place came forward with a large bamboo, supported at either end by a young child, and began chanting a wild prelude, beating time with short sticks upon the bamboo. Obedient to this invitation a girl, apparently about thirteen years old, came forward and commenced a somewhat monotonous dance, her feet hardly leaving the ground.

Ampasimbe

She advanced and retired, moving slowly round, swaying her supple form and waving her arms, her hands especially quivered to the quick notes of the music, to which was presently added the chorus of some twenty women, who stood round in a half-circle. After this exhibition two grown women came forward. Their gestures were less graceful and expressive than those of the girl, and their movements much resembled those of the Nautch girls of India, whilst the first performer reminded me of the Chinese dancers in the Sing-Song houses at Canton. After giving them a small present we were glad to retire to our not uncomfortable quarters. Neither rats nor creeping things annoyed us.

Thursday, July 31s#.—After passing much beautiful and varied scenery, and crossing and recrossing a small river, whose course we followed for a long distance, we were glad at night-fall to reach the large village of Beforona. It was already dusk, and most of the baggage had arrived, and the shouts of the delighted Marmites as they slaughtered and cut up the promised bullock, mingled with the songs and music of the women of Beforona, who gave a very similar performance to what we had witnessed at Ampasimbe. Beforona is built round a large square, in the centre of which are a flag-staff and the usual circumcision poles. The place is notorious for fever; when Lambert and the celebrated Ida Pfeiffer were sent away from the capital to the coast by the old Queen, whom they had conspired to dethrone, their escort had orders to detain them for eighteen days in this place, in the hopes of their dying of fever. Ida Pfeiffer ultimately died of the effects of it, and Lambert suffers severely to this day.

Beforona

Is# August, Friday.— The morning was cold, the valley filled with fog and mist, the thermometer as low as 47° Fahrenheit. Our road during the early part of the day lay over a succession of steep and toilsome hills, which were exceedingly difficult to climb, for the rain came down in torrents, and mingling with the stiff red clay made the footing on the sides of the hills most uncertain, while it filled the valleys between with mud and water. Later in the day we found ourselves engulphed in a vast forest, the deep shades and solitudes of which were most impressive. The silence was only broken by the dull sound of the ceaseless rain, the rushing of the torrents, and the yells, screams, and gibing laughs of the babacootes. (Appendix A.)

The natives have many wild and strange legends of this forest and its inhabitants, especially of immense birds, which, according to their account, rival the Roc of Sinbad the Sailor in size. It is not, indeed, altogether impossible that in the inmost and inaccessible recesses of these wide-stretching forests, there may still linger specimens of those gigantic creatures called JEpyornis maximus. Eggs of this bird are known to have been found. They surpass those of the Ostrich in size. The originals are now, I believe, in Paris, but there is a cast of one of them in Case 108 of the Eastern Zoological Gallery of the British Museum.

In spite of all the wet and difficulties of the road, the good spirits of the Marmites toiling under their heavy burdens were indomitable. Imitating the lemurs’ cries, they would attract those handsome soft-furred animals (which take the place of monkeys in Madagascar), till they would come quite near, springing and swinging from bough to bough, supported by their convolute tails. The vegetation we passed to-day was wondrous. Besides innumerable large timber trees, their vast limbs covered with litmus, lichens, orchids, creeping ferns, and parasites, palms of numerous varieties shot up to a tremendous height: the candelabra-like pandanus exhibited a thousand fantastic shapes, and various bamboos shook their feathery plumes, like monstrous hop - plants, whilst magnolias, myrtles, fig-trees, tree-ferns, with their umbrella-like canopies, filled the space between. Here, in a humid atmosphere and under a tropical sun, the spontaneous growth and decay of vegetation has proceeded without interruption for centuries, presenting scenes unsurpassed in the world.

Falls of Anevoca

The scenery, indeed, is never to be forgotten, especially one part of the road, that wound round the edge of a rapid torrent, which, flowing under a gigantic table of granite, fell in a foaming broad cascade, into a caldron hollowed out of the massive rock beneath. The ravine formed by this torrent was superb, and the cascade, swollen by the rains which had now ceased, was seen to its best advantage. The granite table formed a Titanic bridge over the torrent, and holes worn in it by eddies during past centuries showed the hissing waters beneath. The magnificent foliage met overhead, entwined with wonderful creepers, shutting out the rays of the tropical sun, and throwing a sublime gloom on the scene, lightened here and there by the bright colour and delicate young fronds of the tree-fern. We stopped awhile to breathe and admire. Everything was dripping,— trees, rocks, ferns, parasites, and creepers, ourselves also, whilst our Marmites steamed under their exertions. The road was much easier to travel where it was rocky, but oftentimes we would come to sudden chasms and precipitous slopes, slippery with clay, mud, and water. It was no joke to meet, as we once or twice did, one of the numerous herds of cattle, on their way to Tamatave from the capital, in one of these gullies; they are forced over the edge of these places, and slide, roll, or tumble all the way down without being able to stop themselves till they are brought up in the soft mud at the bottom. Magnificent creatures many of them were, all destined to supply the carnivorous propensities of beefeating John Bull at Mauritius, and, in a less degree, of his Gallic neighbours at Reunion.

Almost the only way to ascend these steep ravines was by climbing along the sides with a shod spear by way of a mountain pole, and pulling oneself along by the network of tangled roots and fibres, which were expflfced here and there where the subsoil had been washed away. Here and there, too, huge trees had fallen across our track, and half imbedded in the clay, or hanging yet in mid-air, either afforded us a causeway over the mud, or caused us to climb and twist over or under them, or else to leave the path altogether and get entangled in the dense underwood and enormous parasitical plants on either side. Often on the summit of some of the steepest ascents we found huge piles of branches, twigs, bits of cloth, &c., the thank-offerings of passing travellers for having reached thus far on their journey and surmounted the hill. The rain presently came down again worse than ever. We found the road almost impassable, and darkness coming on, we fully realized the feelings of the natives, who call this tract “ the wilderness,” and more fully sympathized with the sufferings of those who, persecuted on account of their religion during the reign of Ranavalona, fled here for shelter and for life.

We were finally obliged to stop for the night in one or two wretched woodcutters’ huts; half of the baggage and Marmites, however, remained in the woods all night.

2nd August.—Awoke at sunrise, and anxiously awaited the arrival of the baggage that was left in the forest. By the time we had finished our breakfast, we had the happiness of seeing the Marmites coming up, covered with mud from head to foot, the cases and packages in the same condition—not that we ourselves were much better. A bright sunshine soon enabled us to dry our clothes, and we were ready to start off again about nine o’clock. The Marmites, however, were so fatigued that we only could accomplish half a day’s journey, and complete the stage that we ought to have performed the previous day. The road was still very difficult, but the rain had ceased, and the clay was soon baked into firm walking ground. We halted, after three hours’ march, at Analamazaotra, a small military station, which takes its name from the forest in the centre of which it stands. It is prettily situated in a small clearing on the side of a hill. There are a few patches of red sugar-cane, the Madagascar ground nut (Voandzeia subterranea), tobacco, manioc, and sweet potatoes. At the bottom of the hill runs a small brook with some deep pools in it. We put up some wild duck, and Meller shot a small diver. We found the water icy cold when we bathed. The stream is half choked by trunks of trees, snags, &c., washed down by floods, or thrown down by decay or storm. There were many splendid trees, among them the valuable Azaina* tree, from which we drew some of its yellow resin; the tatamaka, a very hard and durable wood; the colophane; the stink wood; the iron wood, which will turn the edge of an axe, being almost as hard and as heavy as the metal after which it is named; the benzoin, and ebony of various kinds. There was also the sagaye, a very tough wood, and good for shafts, the bois de natte, much used in building, the vangassaye or Madagascar orange, various citrons, fig-trees, and tamarinds, the nowrok tree with its scarlet blossoms, and the magnificent crimson Madagascar creeper.

* “ The Azainà (Azign of Chapelier) has been regarded by some as the most useful tree in Madagascar. It is the Chrysopia fasciculata. Three other species of it have been met with, viz. verrucosa, pomifera, and parvijlora. They belong to the family of Gultiferce, and produce a great quantity of yellow juice, or resin called by the natives ‘ Kitsy,’ and used by them in fastening knives, &c. into their handles. The tree is used for the construction of canoes, which are made by scooping out the trunk.”—History of Madagascar, by W. Ellis.

In the evening the lemurs made a great noise. Their wailing resembles that of a young child. The Marmites danced and sang in joyful anticipation of the Sunday’s halt and rest, besides the prospect of a calf that we ordered to be killed for them. The natives accompanied them with the music of the bamboo valiha, and the lokangavoatavo, a sort of two-stringed fiddle made of wood, with a calabash and a quill bridge. It gives eight distinct notes.

3rd August.—After a week’s good hard exercise, we enjoyed the leisure afforded by the Sunday halt. We walked and strolled about the woods in the neighbourhood, and amongst other objects our attention was drawn to a rudely constructed machine for crushing sugar-cane. It was composed solely of the round trunk of a tree ; half-a-dozen or so of stout pegs or handles were driven into this large roller,- one end rested in a groove cut out of a crossbeam supported on two forked uprights, the other rested upon a rudely shaped piece of timber, somewhat resembling a canoe with only one end hollowed out; on the flat part the sugar-cane is crushed by the heavy roller, and the juice then runs into the hollowed part. A most primitive mill, certainly. Some of the Marmites amused themselves today with shooting birds with a blow-tube ; they can hit an object correctly at the distance of ten or twelve yards. The tube is about three feet long, and the arrow, which has a small quantity of fluff or wool at the blunt end, is about six inches long.

The houses here were the first we saw built of solid wood. The one we lodged in was very substantial, of one room as usual, but having a window and door both with wooden shutters. A stout post occupied the centre of the room, and the western half was divided by a loft formed by cross timbers at the level where the roof met the upright. The side walls were formed of stout pieces of strong bark, of what tree I could not find out. Our servants were accustomed to thrust our table-knives through and through the walls of the houses by way of extemporising a knife-cleaner.

The floors were raised a foot or two above the ground. One house occupied by people making snuff was raised from the ground some ten or twelve feet on piles similar to many of the rice-stores for which it had probably been built. It formed a picturesque object in the village square with a platform as a balcony surrounding it. This evening, like the previous one, was employed by all the people in singing, &c.

Analamazaotra was formerly the boundary beyond which no Hova could pass without a passport from the Queen Ranavalola. This restriction is now abolished, and Radama allows his people full liberty to go or come. The people accordingly sang songs with words in commemoration of this new-found liberty of the subject. In all these military stations where we halted there was a Hova officer, and a couple of soldiers or more under him, whose duty it is to forward on packages, letters, &c., which have been officially franked, from post to post till they reach their destination.

August Ath.—A glorious bright day; and in the cool shades of the forest we were able to laugh at the impotent fierceness of the tropical sun. The trees were if anything larger even than yesterday. It was from this neighbourhood that the famous shaft was hewn which now forms the centre pillar or mast of the Great Palace at Antananarivo. This piece of timber, on which probably the whole weight of the roof depends, is said to be 120 feet in height, and this will give some idea of the immense size of the trees in this forest. How many forced labourers were killed or maimed in felling and transporting this huge mass to the capital through dense forest, and over mountain and river, must for ever remain unknown. But it is certain that the transport employed was sheer corporal strength, mechanical appliances being unknown. A certain creeping, feathery bamboo, which we had not noticed before, became now a conspicuous feature in the scenery.

At mid-day we halted at a small place called Ampas-sapojy, and soon after recommencing our journey shot some more lemurs, and also one or two immense kites. The Monte Christo, or saloon carbine, answered capitally for shooting lemurs, as it makes little or no noise, and is easily loaded. The bullet, too small to injure the skin is carried very straight, and the ammunition and weapon are both portable.

Towards evening we discovered that we were approaching open country; the thick forest trees became less and less, the clearings more numerous, and at last, after a slight ascent, we saw a wide, open, prairie country before us.

We had arrived at Moromanga, and before us, spread in a glorious panorama, lay the province of Antankay, stretching north as far as the eye could see. To the south were wooded hills, and in the west glowing in the sun were the mountains of Ankova.