HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
67 
Tamatave , the fifth, is the next province, and lies to the 
south of Mahavelona. Its principal town or port on the 
coast, takes the name of the district itself, which Europeans 
call Tamatave, or Tamatavy, but by the natives it is uni¬ 
versally called Taomasina. 
The port of Tamatave is one of the finest on the eastern 
coast of the island.* The adjoining reefs are extensive, 
and the swell and surf heavy and appalling, but they 
are considered dangerous only to vessels entering or 
leaving when the wind blows strong from the north-east. 
Tamatave is a small and irregularly-built village, situated 
on a low point of land, with an anchorage in about nine 
fathoms water within the coral reef. Its latitude is 18° 12" 
south. There are about two hundred houses in the 
village, and from eight hundred to a thousand inhabitants. 
The habitations of the natives are of very inferior construc¬ 
tion ; those belonging to European and Creole traders are 
better; and a few are comfortable and substantial. The 
Hovas erected a battery at the northern extremity of the 
village: being, however, merely an enclosure formed of strong 
poles, and containing three or four native houses belonging 
to the government, together with with a powder-magazine 
and several smaller tenements, the whole was destroyed 
by the French in their attack on the island, in 1829. 
Another battery, built of coral, has been subsequently 
erected near the spot, and planted with a few pieces of 
cannon. 
The materials employed in the construction of the houses 
in Tamatave are the ravin-ala, or traveller’s-tree, the 
rofia, and bamboo; the roofs are composed of the leaves 
of the traveller’s-tree, which soon decay. The houses 
* It might be more strictly correct to speak of the roads of Tamatave, 
rather than to call it a port 
