286 ATTRACTIONS OF A MARKET 



two later), and my former fellow-traveller, Mr Louis Street. I 

 ought also to include a Mozambique nurse, one of those African 

 slaves recently set free, in accordance with an agreement made 

 between the English and the Malagasy governments. 



We left Antananarivo on Thursday afternoon, 13th September, 

 a large number of our missionary friends accompanying us for 

 a distance out of the city, in fact as far as the banks of the 

 Ikopa, along which our route lay for several miles. Here one 

 could not but be again impressed with the importance of these 

 river banks in preserving the rice-fields from being flooded, and 

 by the good work done by the old kings of Imerina in embanking 

 the river and thus turning marsh and bog into fruitful fields. 

 Stopping at the L.M.S. mission station of Ambdhidratrimo for 

 the first night of our journey, we reached the station of Fihao- 

 nana in Vonizongo on the second day, putting up at the manse, 

 although the minister (Rev. T. T. Matthews) and his family were 

 away from home. A short half-day's ride brought us to a third 

 mission station, that at Fierenana, where we had a Sunday's 

 rest before setting out on the unknown and principal portion of 

 our journey. We stayed in the house which, a year or two 

 before then, I had marked out for our friends, and recalled how 

 I had taught Mrs Stribling to lay bricks, to bond together the 

 corners of the walls, to manage the chimney breasts, etc., so 

 that she became quite proficient and was able to teach the 

 native workmen bricklaying, which was then to them an 

 unknown art. 



On Monday morning we fairly started on our journey away 

 from mission stations and Europeans. Two hours' ride brought 

 us to a large market where hundreds of people were assembled. 

 We were set down and, before we knew what our men were 

 about, were left almost without a bearer, it being too great a 

 temptation for our fellows not to go into the thick of a market ; 

 and it was some little time before we could get hold of them to 

 carry us into the village near the place. All this day's journey 

 was up a long wide valley enclosed by lines of hills, which 

 gradually approached as we proceeded ; and our evening halt 

 was in a village covered with a layer of finely powdered cow- 

 dung, although the village chapel, our usual inn on such journeys, 

 provided a fairly comfortable resting-place for the night. 



Outside this village the following morning we passed a shoe 



