FLATTERING TITLES. 159 



on the great fronds of the fan-palm standing out in bright 

 green against the sky, that the native mind has caught a very 

 striking feature of the beautiful tree in calling it be-fela- 

 tdnana, "many palms of the hand," comparing its green fans 

 to enormous hands spread against the blue heavens. 



As might be supposed, the complimentary terms and 

 phrases in Malagasy are full of poetical figures. The com- 

 parisons used by the sovereign and addressed to the army, 

 calling them " horns of the kingdom," &c, are mentioned in 

 another chapter ; but another phrase used of the people is 

 also very common, and strikes our English ears as very 

 strange. They are frequently styled the mainty moldly, " the 

 black soot," the idea being taken from the long strings of soot 

 which hang from inside the lofty high-pitched roofs of the old- 

 fashioned Hova houses. These were never cleared away, for 

 they were considered as a proof of an old and long-established 

 family having inhabited that house, a kind of patent of 

 respectability ; and thus the word has become equivalent to 

 what is ancient and venerable from age. 



In the exaggerated and inflated Oriental style of address- 

 ing Malagasy sovereigns they were termed the " defence," the 

 " glory," the " sun," and even the " God," of their subjects ; 

 while these latter were addressed by flattering titles, as the 

 " walls of the rice fields," the " great lake " supplying water, 

 the " cloth without difference back or front," " the water 

 level, neither high or low," " the lip (or rim) of a vessel, one 

 all round," and " the guinea-fowl all one colour," &c. The 

 Borizano, or civilians, are complimented as " the spades with 

 long handles to manure well (literally, apply soot to) the 

 earth and the kingdom," " the hoofs to stand firm " (against 

 an enemy), the " stones filling the hands of the peopli*" and 

 as being " the grass called tsiriry to remain upon the land, 

 and not the bird called tsiriry to fly away from it," &c. 

 While the " Ten ten-thousand men " or Fdlo-dlin-ddhy, the 

 army, are styled " sharp spears and thick shields," " needles 

 of the kingdom, and wetted thread to bind it together," 

 " horns of the kingdom," and " bolts and covering of the land 

 to keep together what Eadama gathered," &c. The sovereign 

 styles the people, and they also call her, rai-dman-drdny, i.e. 



