24 NATIVE HOUSES 



Great quantities of poultry are reared in the interior and are 

 brought down to the coast for sale to the ships trading at the 

 ports. 



The houses of the Malagasy officials and the principal foreign 

 traders were substantially built of wooden framework, with 

 walls and floors of planking and thatched with the large leaves 

 of the traveller's tree. No stone can be procured near Tamatave, 

 nor can bricks be made there, as the soil is almost entirely sand ; 

 the town itself is indeed built on a peninsula, a sandbank thrown 

 up by the sea, under the shelter of the coral reefs which form the 

 harbour. The house where I was staying consisted of a single 

 long room, with the roof open to the ridge ; a small sleeping 

 apartment was formed at one corner by a partition of rofia 

 cloth. There was no window, but light and air were admitted 

 by large doors, which were always open during the day. A few 

 folds of Manchester cottons, to serve as mattress, and a roll of 

 the same for a pillow, laid on Mr Procter's counter, formed a 

 luxurious bed after the discomforts of a bullock vessel. All 

 around us, in the native houses, singing and rude music, with 

 drumming and clapping of hands, were kept up far into the 

 night ; and these sounds, as well as the regular beating of the 

 waves all round the harbour, and the excitement of the new and 

 strange scenes of the past day, kept me from sleep until the 

 small hours of the morning. 



The following day I went to make a visit to the Governor of 

 Tamatave, as a new arrival in the country. My host accom- 

 panied me, as I was of course quite unable to talk Malagasy. 

 As this was a visit of ceremony, it was not considered proper 

 to walk, so we went by the usual conveyance of the country, 

 the filanjdna. This word means anything by which articles or 

 persons are carried on the shoulder, and is usually translated 

 " palanquin," but the filanjdna is a very different thing from 

 the little portable room which is used in India. In our case it 

 was a large easy-chair, attached to two poles, and carried by 

 four stout men, or mdromita, as they are called. They carried 

 us at a quick trot ; but this novel experience struck me I can 

 hardly now understand why as irresistibly ludicrous, and I 

 could not restrain my laughter at the comical figure as it then 

 seemed to me that we presented, especially when I thought of 

 the sensation we should make in the streets of an English town. 



