BAR A TOWNS. 207 



a dense tliicket of prickly-pear, which makes an impervious 

 barrier to an enemy. The roads leading to the gateways are 

 narrow and winding ; and the gate consists of a number of 

 round poles hung from a cross-bar at the top, each of which 

 must be lifted up before one can pass through. In many 

 cases the gateway has a low wall built round it inside, so 

 that it seems made rather to deny entrance than to facilitate 

 it, for a visitor has to climb over it in a most awkward and 

 undignified fashion. And on the borders of the uninhabited- 

 land, where marauding parties of Sakalava frequently appear, 

 the gateway is often a long low tunnel, in some cases fitted 

 with three pairs of strong wooden gates, which are carefully 

 barred at night. 



In the BetsiMo province the old towns are built on yet 

 loftier and more inaccessible hills than even in Imerina; but 

 the plains are often dotted over with numbers of detached 

 homesteads or valas, each enclosed in a green ring-fence of a 

 species of thorny mimosa, which is as effectual a barrier as 

 the prickly-pear itself. 



The Bara towns are described by Mr. Bichardson as 

 "arranged more for the convenience of the cattle than for 

 the comfort of the people." Like the Sihanaka villages, 

 they have defences of prickly-pear, with similar gateways of 

 poles hung from a cross-piece. Among all the tribes of the 

 eastern and southern portions of Madagascar the number of 

 houses in a village looks much larger than it really is, from 

 the fact that about a third of what appear to be dwelbngs 

 are rice stores, trdno ambo or "elevated houses." These are 

 neatly made little houses, but raised up five or six feet from 

 the ground by four stout posts. Just under the flooring a sort 

 of collar, a foot to eighteen inches in diameter, is fitted to 

 each post, these are saucer-shaped, with the concave side down- 

 ward, and cut quite smooth, so that an adventurous rat or 

 mouse, wishing to feast on the rice deposited in the little 

 room above, finds it an insurmountable obstacle to ascending 

 higher than the top of the post. These rice-houses are also 

 used for storing clothes and other valuables. 



Fire by Friction. — Like every semi-civilised people (and, 

 indeed, like almost every barbarous people as well), the 



