CHAPTER VIII 



THE CHANGING MONTHS IN IMERINA : CLIMATE, VEGETATION 

 AND LIVING CREATURES OF THE INTERIOR 



AUTUMN : MARCH AND APRIL. It will be understood 

 from what has been previously stated as to the divisions 

 of the seasons in the Imerina province that, as with the 

 seasons in England, there is some variety hi different years in 

 the times when they commence and finish. Generally, both 

 crops of rice the earlier and the later are all cut by the end 

 of April, although in the northern parts of the province it is 

 usually five or six weeks after that date. But if the rains are 

 late, and should happen to be scanty in February and March, 

 harvest work is still going on at the end of May. In fact, owing 

 to there being these two crops of rice, with no very exactly 

 marked division between the two, autumn, in the sense of rice 

 harvest, is going on for about four months, and sometimes 

 longer, as just mentioned, and extends over the later months 

 of summer as well as the two months of autumn or Fdrardno 

 (March and April). In January those portions of the great 

 rice-plain which lie north-west of the capital, as well as many 

 of the lesser plains and valleys, become golden-yellow in hue,' 

 very much indeed like the colour of an English wheat-field in 

 harvest-time ; and after a few days patches of water-covered 

 field may be noticed in different places, showing where the crop 

 has been cut, and the few inches of water in which it was grow- 

 ing show conspicuously in the prospect. As the weeks advance, 

 this water-covered area extends over larger portions of the rice- 

 plain, until the whole of the early crop has been gathered in, so 

 that in many directions there appear to be extensive sheets of 

 water. I well remember, when once at Ambohimanarina, a 

 large village to the north-west of Antananarivo, how strange 

 it appeared to see people setting out to cross what seemed a 

 considerable lake. But of course there was no danger, as the 

 water was only a few inches deep. 

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