HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
301 
their master’s house, frequently two or three miles from 
the field. The loads are heavy, and this part of the labour 
is often exceedingly severe. The straw is preserved for 
fuel or fodder for the cattle. 
The secure storing of the rice is an object of great 
importance in Madagascar ; and different means are 
employed by the several tribes, or races, for keeping it from 
mildew or damp, and preventing its being stolen by the 
indolent or destitute among themselves, or being destroyed 
by the rats which abound in the villages. 
The Hovas, and inhabitants of Betsileo, preserve it under¬ 
ground, keeping it in circular excavations five or six feet in 
diameter, and seven or eight feet deep. The form of these 
rice-pits greatly resembles a bee-hive; the sides are lined 
with stiff clay, from the floor, also of hard clay, to the 
summit, where a small aperture is left, which is usually 
covered with a stone. Through this aperture the grain is 
poured when brought from the field, and through the same 
the quantity required for daily use is obtained. These sub¬ 
terranean granaries are constructed with great care, and 
rice is often kept in them for a long time, apparently with- 
out being in the least degree injured. The rice granary is 
usually near a country-house belonging to the owner, or in 
the court-yard of that in which the family resides. The 
cruelty of the rulers of this unhappy people has led them 
to apply them to other and vastly different purposes, making 
them a sort of black-holes, in each of which six or eight, or 
a larger number of people, have, for some real or pretended 
offence against the sovereign, been shut up, till they have 
died by suffocation. 
Some of the tribes construct their granaries above ground ? 
and make them resemble in shape those already described. 
They are conical, or formed like a bee-hive ; and often 
