74 
MADAGASCAR 
are applied for giving- an alarm, and the tones of the 
concertina are heard in almost all the villages. The 
Hova play the violin with great skill; within the last ten 
years their trumpeters have composed a national hymn ; 
one old princess had a granddaughter whom I heard play 
the piano really well. The valiha, or bamboo guitar, 
the tones of which make quite a pleasing impression on 
the ear, is used in many of the villages. This instru¬ 
ment consists of a piece of bamboo-cane some six 
feet long, the cavity of which serves as sounding board. 
Between the ends of an internode the strings are cut 
out of the tough rind with a sharp instrument and are 
then stretched by quadrangular bridges of the hard rind 
of BreJimia spinosa. 
The costume of the Malagasy has lost much of its 
originality, especially among the Hova, who generally 
dress in European fashion. Among the Hova slaves 
and the African Malagasy the men wear a loin-cloth and 
a jacket of rough palm-cloth, over which is a woollen 
overall (lamba). Overalls of silk, for the most part 
very elaborately worked, are used even by the Hova who 
wear European dress. The women make use of a good- 
sized piece of palm-cloth, which is fastened over the hips 
and reaches to the ground, to serve as a gown, while a 
second wrapper is thrown round the shoulders. As head- 
gear the men in the Hova district have a cap or hat 
made of rice straw, the women array themselves in straw 
hats adorned with red ribbons; among the African tribes 
the head is generally uncovered, but occasionally caps of 
lambskin or ox-hide are made use of. 
Among the Sakalava of the west, European dress has 
made some way, under the influence of the Jesuit mission 
in the north. Sakalava women of quality are even be¬ 
ginning to squeeze their feet into tight boots, but they move 
about in them with comical awkwardness. The men 
wear a loin-cloth, after the manner of the Muscat Arabs, 
