HISTORY' OF MADAGASCAR. 
203 
kept in large sacks or baskets in the house for domestic 
use. 
Locusts are usually cooked by frying them in an iron or 
earthen vessel. Shrimps are not unknown in the island, and 
the natives say that in taste the locusts resemble them. 
An equally singular, but scarcely less frequent article 
of food among the Malagasy, is the silkworm in its 
chrysalis state. Considerable quantities of these are 
gathered, and exposed in large baskets or sacks for sale 
in the markets of the Betsileo country, and in some of the 
districts of Imerina, more particularly Imamo, where the 
tapia edulis, the plant on which the silkworm of Madagascar 
feeds, grows spontaneously in great luxuriance and abun¬ 
dance. Silkworms are cooked and eaten by the natives of 
Betsileo and Imerina as grasshoppers and fish are prepared 
and taken by the inhabitants of other provinces. 
The fish eaten by the natives are not numerous. A spe¬ 
cies resembling trout in form and size, with a considerable 
variety of smaller fish, especially a kind of the size and 
appearance of sprats, taken in the canals or branches of 
the rice grounds, and in the inland ponds, are much used. 
Eels, some of them remarkably large, crawfish, and oysters 
are also used in different parts of the country. 
The vegetable productions are numerous and valuable. 
First among these may be properly reckoned the nutri¬ 
tious and wholesome vary , or native rice. It is the 
most important and general article of support to the 
whole population, and may be justly regarded, as in many 
Eastern countries, the staff of life. The natives consider 
rice alone as mahavoky , C£ able to appease hunger, or 
satisfy the appetite.” Every thing else, even the round of 
buffalo beef, is regarded only as an accompaniment to 
the rice. In ancient times, in some countries, the invita- 
