CHAP. XI. THE VILLAGE OF ANDEVORANDRO. 287 



merited them. The number of birds was also always propor- 

 tioned to that of the cattle ; if the latter were but few, they 

 would be attended by only two or three birds ; but if the herd 

 was large, there would be great numbers of birds in small 

 companies amongst them. I regretted that I did not obtain 

 a specimen of these useful birds. 



This afternoon we passed a piece of water called Eano- 

 mainty or Black-water, and shortly after reached Andevo- 

 randro, a village of perhaps two hundred houses, standing on 

 the banks of the Iharoka, the largest river in the district of 

 Betanimena. My palanquin was set down at the house of 

 the head man of the village ; and on reaching the doorway I 

 beheld between twenty and thirty men seated on the ground, 

 one or two of their number pouring out arrack from long thick 

 bamboo canes into large basins, which the rest were drinking 

 from, and handing round. Many were shouting or singing a 

 kind of monotonous song, others were adding to the din by 

 beating time with a stick upon a long hollow bamboo, an 

 amusement in which the natives sometimes spend a great 

 part of the night. \Mien the chief man came and requested 

 this party to remove, they went to a kind of outhouse in the 

 neighbourhood, but the arrival of so many travellers drew 

 away some from their drunken carousal. 



\M3en I had seen the packages all deposited in the 

 government house, I walked through this and two adjoining 

 villages to the junction of the river with the sea. The open- 

 ing was narrow, and the mouth of the river, like most of the 

 openings we had passed, was nearly blocked up with sand. 

 This neighbourhood appeared more populous than any I had 

 before seen. The people seemed industrious and well off. 

 There were several small gardens near the village; and I 

 noticed a number of women sitting outside their houses, and 

 employed in peeling the leaflets of the rofia palm, and 

 splitting the tough thin skin into threads for weaving ; others 



