THE ARAB IMMIGRATION INTO SOUTH-EAST MADAGASCAR. 347 
and carefully wrapped in rofia fibre. This is held over the 
smoke of some burning gum used as incense, while a certain 
formula is recited by the wise men, which takes the form of 
a blessing and assurance of the consummation desired, rather 
than of a prayer; after this the document and its covering 
are enveloped in wax and ornamented with beads; a string 
is attached, and it is worn like a bead. “ Sometimes,” naively 
said my informant, “the woman has her wish, and she 
becomes a mother, and sometimes she does not.” In either 
case, the money or its equivalent has been paid to the 
diviner, and he at any rate is perfectly satisfied. 
In the same fashion almost all the circumstances of life 
are made to be in some way or other dependent upon the 
Sora-be; and a spurious but most effective sacredness is 
given to them by the fady or taboo which is invariably 
connected with them. No original copy is ever parted with, 
though cunning, craft, and avarice have led the keepers to 
bamboozle some foreigners with ancient-looking copies. It 
is only with difficulty that a sight of the original books (only 
two, some say three, are in existence) can be obtained; and 
they are smoke-dried, dirty, torn, and rat-eaten to such an 
extent as to render them almost useless. There are, however, 
some very good copies, so it is said, over which great care 
has been taken to secure accuracy, and almost fabulous 
amounts are demanded for single copies, which are even 
then only secured by favour. 
They are written upon large sheets of a kind of vegetable 
parchment made from the bark of one of the forest trees. 
The bark is stripped from the tree, and after being denuded 
of the rough outer bark, it is steeped in water until saturated 
and softened. It is then beaten with mallets or flattened 
pieces of wood until it is reduced to the proper thickness, 
It is then firmly pegged on a board and exposed to the sun, 
which not only dries the bark, but bleaches it. In order to 
make it ready for the pen, it is washed with a fairly thick 
size, made of manioc root reduced to powder and boiled in 
water. After this has dried, the surface of the bark is 
tolerably smooth, and can be written upon with their pens 
or a quill with comparative facility. These sheets of bark 
are then cut into convenient sizes (about quarto) and stitched 
together into book form, but not rolled. 
The pen used is made from a piece of bamboo, treated 
very much as we do quills, and cut in the same fashion. 
Quills, however, seem never to have been used by these 
