STORING RICE 195 



curtailed as we proceeded farther on our journey. To the 

 north of the village is a lofty point, called Ankitsika ; it has a 

 double cone-shaped outline that is, a small cone upon a large 

 truncated one and is doubtless of volcanic origin. The word 

 Ankitsika means "at a cave," and there is said to be a 

 cave at the top, where, in former times, the people took 

 refuge when their enemies, the Sakalava, made a raid upon 

 them. 



The village which we had now come to was " our farthest 

 north," for from here we began to turn our faces homewards ; 

 and as we had now seen the largest villages in the province, I 

 may as well say something here about the Sihanaka, and their 

 occupations and means of subsistence. 



Their occupations are, chiefly, tending cattle, growing rice, 

 fishing, and making tbaka (rum). Almost every family keeps 

 cattle, save the very poorest, and there is nothing the people 

 like better than to follow their herds and camp out in the 

 pastures with their wives and children. The day of cutting 

 the ears of the young animals (so as to distinguish them from 

 those of the queen) was always kept as a day of rejoicing, 

 killing oxen, and feasting. Yet very few milk their cattle, for 

 they prefer the broth made from fish to milk. 



As we went round the outside edge of the plain, we saw a large 

 extent of rice ground under cultivation ; but the people do not 

 dig the soil, or transplant the rice, as is the custom in Imerina, 

 but cultivate their fields in the following way. First of all they 

 make a number of low earthen banks, which are intended to 

 hold the water. That being done, oxen are driven over the 

 ground to be planted, where the water is a few inches deep, and 

 when the soil has been well turned over, then the rice is sown ; 

 and there it is left until it is reaped, without transplanting or 

 weeding. When the rice has been reaped, it is heaped together 

 in round stacks, which are of a considerable size. When quite 

 dry, the grain is threshed out with a stick, two men or more 

 striking in regular turn. The rice is not stored in pits, as in 

 Imerina, but in an enormous kind of basket or round enclosure, 

 made of papyrus plaited together, and about eight feet high 

 and from twenty to thirty feet in diameter. These are in the 

 fields, and are roofed over ; and rice being so cheap and plentiful 

 with them, the people do not measure the rice itself, but they 



