CHAP. XII. 
VILLAGE MARKET IN ANKOVA. 
331 
one of a party travelling with us — were able to cast it to 
the required distance, while some could scarcely lift it. 
When they had finished their sport, we resumed our 
journey, and, about an hour before noon, reached Ankara 
Madinika. 
This was the first village in Ankova, the central province 
of the island. It was market day, and a number of men 
and women had goods, viz. rice and other kinds of grain, 
roots, vegetables, poultry, raw cotton, pet birds in cages, &c., 
spread out on the ground, or exposed in baskets, by the side 
of the road, as we entered the village. I afterwards walked 
through the market, asking the price of some of the articles, 
and purchased some ready cooked sweet potatoes and manioc, 
which were exceedingly good. The houses here were more 
substantially built than those we had passed, but dirty inside. 
The people were somewhat fairer than those in the lower 
provinces. There did not seem to be much traffic in the 
market, though a considerable number of people had come 
together. 
Food already cooked is generally offered for sale in the 
Malagasy markets, but the only kinds of cooked food which I 
saw were manioc and sweet potatoes, which were apparently 
in considerable demand. There were neither fish, nor eggs, 
nor locusts; the season was too early for the latter, which 
generally pass over the central provinces during the spring 
of the year, and cause great destruction among the fields and 
gardens. The locusts generally fly within two or three feet 
of the ground, and, as soon as their approach is perceived, 
the people rush out, and with great clamour endeavour to 
strike them down, or enclose them in their lambas, while the 
women and children gather them up in baskets from the 
ground, and detach their legs and wings, by shaking them from 
one end to the other of a long sack, in the same way that 
grocers clean their raisins. The legs and wings are then 
