264 
'The carpenters are handy at their trade, and can plane a 
piece of wood perfectly well. 
They also make many articles of horn, as spoons, &c. 
But their skillin working gold and silver is greater, and 
of these metals they make bracelets and chains without any 
soldering, the texture of which is often so delicate that 
Europeans themselves find difficulty in imitating them, 
and this highly flatters their conceit of themselves. This 
misplaced vanity will not allow them to think any foreign 
production superior to their own; they are perfect work- 
men in their own estimation, and if they can succeed in imi- 
tating the articles of other nations, they wonder how " 
person can dispute the superiority of their talents. 
The internal commerce of Emerina consists in rice, cotton, 
silk, cattle, cloth of their own manufacture, and the traffic of 
slaves. For the sale of these different articles there are large 
fairs every day in various parts of the province, which are . 
named after the days of the week on which they are held, as, 
Sunday, Alahadi; Tuesday, Taladi, &c. These fairs, which 
commonly take place on large plains, serve also for military 
exercises; and it is there, also, that the King’s decrees are 
generally promulgated. . That nearest to the capital, and. 
situated to the south of it, is on Friday, and called Juma. ` 
Purchases are made at Emerina either by blue or white 
cloth, or by piastres. The Huwa are accustomed to cut 
the piastre into small pieces, down to the weight of a grain 
of rice, and they weigh the silver in scales of very neat work- 
manship. By an express command of the King, it is requisite 
that on the smallest portion of the piastre the mark of that- 
coin should appear, without which it is rejected, and cannot. 
pass as money; this does not, however, prevent there being & 
large quantity of little bits, on which the marks of the piastre 
are so well imitated, as completely to deceive the unwary 
purchaser. A different name is ‘given to each suicide of | 
the piastre. * 
Formerly the jiieipal trade of the "neis was j dies sale: of 
slaves to the French at Tamatave and Foulpointe. These 
people furnished. the colonies of Miis and Bourbon with 
