RICE-HOUSES 241 



was raised a foot or so from the ground, the inside lined with 

 mats, and so was a pleasant change from our damp lodgings of 

 the previous evening. 



Next morning, on opening our window, we had before us, two 

 or tree miles across the great basin or valley, three waterfalls, 

 one descending in a long white line and almost lost in spray 

 before it reaches the bottom. The sunlight revealed all the 

 beauties of the scene around us, and made us long for the power 

 to transfer to canvas or paper its chief outlines. Were such a 

 neighbourhood as this in an accessible part of any European 

 country, it would rapidly become famous for its scenery. We 

 found the village of Ivohitrosa to consist of twelve houses only, 

 enclosed within a rdva of pointed stakes ; but besides these are 

 several rice-houses or trdno arnbo (" high houses ") mounted on 

 posts five or six feet above the ground, each post having a 

 circular wooden ring just under the flooring rafters, and pro- 

 jecting eight or nine inches, so as to prevent the rats ascending 

 and helping themselves to rice. I sincerely wished last night 

 that the dwelling-houses had a similar arrangement, for the rats 

 had a most jovial night of it in our lodgings, being doubtless 

 astonished at the number and variety of the packages just 

 arrived. The house we are in, as well as others in the village, 

 has carved horns at the gables, not the crossed straight timbers 

 so called in Hova houses, but curved like bullocks' horns. The 

 people appear to have no slaves here, for the daughters of the 

 chief, in all their ornaments, are pounding rice, four at one 

 mortar. 



At this part of the island the high interior plateau seems to 

 descend by one great step to the coast plains, and not by two, 

 as it does farther north ; for our aneroid told us that we came 

 down twenty -five hundred feet yesterday, and that the stream 

 at the foot of this hill is only five hundred or six hundred 

 feet above sea-level. And the two lines of forest one crosses 

 farther on are here united into one. 



The men and many of the women wear a rather high round 

 skull-cap made of fine plait ; the women wear little except a 

 mat sewn together at the ends, so as to form a kind of sack, 

 and fastened by a cord round the waist, and only occasionally 

 pulled up high enough to cover the bosom. Those who are 

 nursing infants have also a small figured mat about eighteen 

 Q 



