JOURNEYING IN MADAGASCAR. 239 



modern science, speculative and experimental, teaches, then the 

 reactionary spirit of the movement becomes startlingly clear, and 

 then, perhaps, will we understand the poet, who, speaking for the 

 Goddess of Liberty, said : 



" I am a threat to oppression's sin. 



And a pharos light to the weak endeavor. 

 Mine is the love that men may "win, 

 But lost it is lost forever ! " 



-- 



JOURNEYING IN MADAGASCAR* 



By FEANK VINCENT. 



EARLY on the morning of September 10th I left Antananarivo 

 for Mojanga. My chief reason for not returning to Tamatave 

 was that I preferred to see new country ; and the second, that I 

 wished to visit some gold mines worked by a Frenchman, named 

 Suberbie, who had a concession of a large tract about halfway be- 

 tween the capital and the coast. This gentleman has a house in 

 Antananarivo and spends much of his time there. I had the pleas- 

 ure of meeting him and he favored me with letters of introduction 

 to his manager at one place and a mining engineer at another. 

 The bulk of my baggage had been left in Tamatave, and was to be 

 sent on by the next monthly French mail steamer to Zanzibar, my 

 ultimate destination. I expected to meet a like steamer at Nosy 

 Be', a French port and island on the northwest coast, with which I 

 learned I might connect by means of a small French steamer 

 which periodically served the principal ports on the west coast of 

 the island. By thus crossing Madagascar I hoped to familiarize 

 myself with its three great races. The Sakalavas on the western 

 portion of the island have always borne a bad name, which they 

 have in part merited, though high-handed aggressions of for- 

 eigners ought often to be urged in mitigation thereof. I was 

 warned to keep my revolver in readiness and my escort near at 

 hand, and so determined to take chances of a safe passage to the 

 sea. The direct distance from the capital to Mojanga is two hun- 

 dred and forty miles in a general northwest direction, though 

 this distance, by many deviations and changes of level, is length- 

 ened by the traveled route into about three hundred and eleven 

 miles. Of this latter distance some two hundred miles are by land 

 in filanzana and the remainder by water in pirogue and dhow, or 

 small sailboat. The total journey may readily be accomplished in 

 ten days. The country through which I would have to pass was 



* Extracted from the author's latest book of travel, entitled Actual Africa, recently pub- 

 lished by Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. 



