104 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
a kabary by the judges or officers appointed by the sove- 
reign to deliver royal messages. 
When the sovereign appears in person, a temporary 
stage is erected for him and his attendants; which, how¬ 
ever, by some kind of strange anomaly in state language, 
is called Farafara, that is, “ a bedstead/' Its form some¬ 
what resembles a native bedstead, and this may have led 
to the name ; but if it were meant to intimate that the situa¬ 
tion of a sovereign in Madagascar, is “repose upon a 
downy couch,” it would but ill accord with facts. 
To the south of Andohalo are two spots, of no small 
importance to a native : one, where the ceremony of 
Milefon-omby, i. e. “ killing the calf,” is performed, being 
another part of the ceremony of swearing the oath of 
allegiance; and the other spot, adjoining the above, is a 
large pond, where cattle and poultry enjoy many a luxu¬ 
rious draught — where the daughters of the people may 
be seen every hour of the day filling their sinys* with 
water—and where the smiths are busily employed in 
scrubbing off, with sand and water, the dirt and rust 
from their swords and muskets, when the trumpet of war 
is heard in the land, and a part of the army is about 
to march from the capital. 
Opposite to this pond is a part of the town which neither 
the sovereign, nor any part of the royal family, may ever 
enter. Some chieftain, or sovereign of former times, placed 
himself and his successors for ever, under an obligation of 
this kind; and time has rendered the observance of the 
custom so sacred, that any sovereign who should have the 
temerity to attempt an infraction of so important a privilege, 
would now perhaps risk his head or his kingdom. 
Native pitcher. 
