58 WEAVING 



cuticle on each side is peeled off, leaving a thin straw-coloured 

 fibrous substance, which is divided by a sort of comb into 

 different widths, according to the fineness or otherwise of the 

 material to be made. The fibre is very strong and is the common 

 substitute for string in Madagascar. In other villages we saw 

 the women weaving the cloth with most rude and primitive 

 looms, consisting merely of four pieces of wood fixed in the mud 

 floor of the house, and a framework of two or three pieces of 

 bamboo. The material they make, however, is a good, strong- 

 looking article, with stripes of various colours and patterns 

 woven into the stuff, and is extensively used by the poorer 

 classes. With the same simple loom the Hova women make 

 many kinds of woven stuffs ; of hemp, cotton, rojia fibre, and 

 of this last, mingled with silk or cotton, very pretty and useful 

 cloth of a straw colour, being made in this way. Of the strong 

 native silk they also weave very handsome Idmbas of bright 

 and varied colours and patterns, such as used to be worn on all 

 festive occasions by the higher classes, as well as the more 

 sombre dark red lambas which are used by all classes for 

 wrapping the dead. 



We had now reached a part of the country where the rofla 

 palm was the most prominent object in the vegetation, not on 

 the hills, however, like the traveller's tree, but chiefly in the 

 valleys, where there is plenty of moisture. This palm grows 

 very abundantly and can easily be distinguished from the other 

 trees of its order. The trunk has a rough and rugged surface, 

 and this reaches the height of twenty to thirty feet ; but the 

 leaves are its most striking feature ; they are magnificent plumes, 

 of enormous length, quite as long as the trunk itself. The 

 midrib of these leaves has a very strong but light structure, 

 some four to five inches wide at the base, and on this account it 

 is largely used for ladders, for palanquin poles, for roofing, and 

 indeed for anything needing lightness as well as strength. On 

 these midribs are set a great number of grass-like pinnate 

 fronds, from which, as already noticed, string and fibre are 

 prepared for weaving. Great clusters of seeds (or fruits ?), 

 which are enclosed in a shiny brown skin, hang down from the 

 top of the trunk. These are used for boxes to enclose small 

 articles, as jewellery, etc. At one part of our journey the only 

 road was through an extensive sheet of water, through which 



