CHAPTER XIV 



ROUND ANTSIHANAKA 



SOME years ago I was asked to accompany two gentlemen 

 on a journey to one of the then least-known provinces 

 of Madagascar, that occupied by the Sihanaka or lake- 

 dwellers. Two of our party took surveying instruments with 

 them, and we were thus able to prepare the first accurate map 

 of the Antsihanaka province. 



My companions on this journey were the late Rev. Dr 

 Mullens, then Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary 

 Society, and the late Rev. John Pillans, one of the directors 

 of the same society, and most pleasant and genial companions 

 they were. Dr Mullens was very fond of a joke and enjoyed 

 recalling humorous passages from Dickens or from Punch ; he 

 was also a born geographer and had a wonderful eye for the 

 beautiful and the picturesque in scenery. Mr Pillans was a 

 graver man, but one of solid worth and good judgment ; and in 

 the tent which we carried with us we three had many a happy 

 evening together. Like all journeys made in those days, this 

 one was performed in the filanjdna or light palanquin ; and 

 not only did Dr Mullens, with an azimuth compass, take angles 

 and bearings for the map, but he also took a number of photo- 

 graphs all along our route. I had with me a good theodolite, 

 so that we were able to compare and check each other's 

 observations. 



A few words may be said here about the position of the 

 Antsihanaka province. Repeated reference has been already 

 made in this book to the double belt of forest which runs for 

 several hundred miles along the eastern side of Madagascar. A 

 glance at a physical map of the island will show that, at about 

 the seventeenth parallel of south latitude, this double line unites 

 into one broader belt, becoming very wide west of Antongil 

 Bay. It is the open country south of the junction of the two 

 forests that forms the home of the Sihanaka tribe. This 



