CHAP. XVI. 
PORTRAITS TAKEN WITH CAMERA. 
445 
off proofs from the negatives I had taken at the capital, 
which I put in glass frames, and sent to their respective 
owners, who have since acknowledged the pleasure their 
arrival afforded them. 
Most of the leading persons at Tamatave came to see the 
likenesses of the members of the Hova court at the capital. 
Many of the friends of the prince, when they looked at the 
full-length likeness of him which I had printed, took off their 
hats and respectfully saluted the picture, pronouncing his 
name with emphasis, and adding “ Yeloma Tompoko ” “May 
you live, sovereign or lord.” Few of the visitors interested me 
more than the widow of the late M. Delastelle. She was the 
daughter of one of the late hereditary chiefs of the Betsima- 
saraka, or race inhabiting this part of the country, and whose 
ancestors until within the last half century had been ac¬ 
customed to regard the ancestors of Badama and the reigning 
families of the Hovas as greatly their inferiors, and the Hovas 
as by no means their equals. She gazed earnestly for a long 
time at the full-length likeness of the princess, repeatedly 
uttering, “ And that is Babodo ! ” Several persons came more 
than once and begged to look at the pictures. 
I often had occasion to notice the manner in which the 
natives measure short periods of time. When asked how 
long it would require to walk to a certain place, they would 
answer by the time it took to cook a pan or pans of rice, 
saying, it will require as long as one cooking of rice, or two 
cookings of rice, each cooking of rice being from twenty 
minutes to half an hour; and I was much struck with the 
similarity of customs prevailing among people in the early 
periods of their social organisation, though placed in cir¬ 
cumstances otherwise different and exceedingly remote, by 
reading, in that most interesting account of the arctic regions 
by Dr. Kane, that the Ostiaks, in Liben, measure time by the 
time of cooking a kettle of food or a meal. Few, if any other 
