248 
MADAGASCAR. 
here when a sovereign dies to cut off the hair, and con¬ 
sequently we found a nation of bald heads, some of 
them quite glossy. It was amusing to meet our friends, 
as in many cases we did not recognise them until they 
spoke to us. A man walked up into the town.with me in 
the morning, and from his familiarity I conclude he was 
a man I had known very well, hut I did not recognise 
him, and have not been able to recall his identity since. 
The strangest part of the business was that the clipping 
was all done at once, for on Friday morning the entire 
country around Antananarivo was clean-clipped, except 
some score or so of privileged Malagasy and the Euro¬ 
peans. All the people also went about with their lambas 
down below their shoulders, and without the usual shirt 
generally worn underneath. 
“ While the tomb was being made, cannon and mus¬ 
ketry were fired all day long, the chief road through the 
city up to the palace being lined with soldiers. 
“ On Friday afternoon we went to the palace to take 
our present (60 dollars) towards the funeral expenses, 
and also to present a dollar as hasina to the new Queen. 
We were taken all over the palace-yard to see the ar¬ 
rangements that were being made for the funeral. In 
one part were the silversmiths, with their upright bel¬ 
lows and charcoal fires, all busy transforming dollars 
into small plates, each plate formed of 50 dollars riveted 
together in a rough style. These were to be made into 
a coffin about eight feet long and three and a half feet in 
width and depth. In another part of the ground men 
were busy making the foundations of the stone tomb. 
Numbers of women were bringing water, and in the large 
palace were two or three hundred women sitting with 
bare shoulders, and all making a low moan as a sign of 
