C.—MADAGASCAR
CHAPTER VI
Tananarive—“A City Set on a Hill”
Earth has not anything to show more fair;
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning.
Wordsworth.
We travelled from Kawimbe in Northern Rhodesia to Madagascar by way of German East Africa and Zanzibar. Owing to unavoidable delays at the ports the journey occupied ten weeks. For the first three we travelled by chair and bicycle and on foot, northward to Tabora, along a road almost parallel with the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. On the first night we encamped at a village near the Kalambo river, the boundary between Northern Rhodesia and German East Africa, close to the wonderful Kalambo Falls. The river, which is deep and about thirty yards wide, plunges over a perpendicular wall of rock 900 feet high into an awful chasm in one sheer drop. The rocky walls on each side of the gorge are vertical. Looking westward one has a lovely view of Lake Tanganyika, vignetted between cloudless blue sky and the purple-breasted mountains in which the gorge terminates, lying calm and peaceful in the “splendour shadowless and broad.”
A week-end was spent at Kasanga, now known as Bismarckburg, the administrative centre of the southern part of German East Africa, where we met some educated and courteous German officials, who have always done what they could to facilitate the missionary work of the Society in the small section of their territory in which it is being carried on, and gave us some interesting information with regard to native customs and superstitions. We learnt that the natives offer sacrifices of goats, sheep and fowls at the Kalambo Falls to propitiate the gods who are supposed to dwell in the chasm, and to bring them luck. They have a superstition that the land at the bottom of the Falls would belong to the posterity of any person who threw himself over. A woman recently sacrificed herself in this way, and the Chief gave the land at the foot of the Falls to her family. When twins are born it is the custom to do away with one of them. Children who cut the upper teeth first are killed. Cannibalism amongst the natives is by no means extinct, and as late as six years ago a European was killed and eaten. There are well authenticated recent cases of the widow of a Chief being buried alive in the grave of her dead husband. This part of German East Africa is certainly a land that is dark.
But I must not linger over the journey. Towards the end of June we reached Tabora, a large native town of some 30,000 inhabitants, whence we took train to Dar-es-Salaam on the east coast of the Continent—the capital of the German colony. This place is beautifully situated on the shores of a land-locked harbour, and the streets are bordered with stately cocoanut palms and shady acacias. It was formerly the centre of the Arab slave trade, but, to-day, except for the tropical vegetation, it reminds one of a modern European town. A few hours on a steamer brought us to Zanzibar, one of the most fascinating places we visited in our travels. After a stay of some days there we embarked on the Messageries Maritimes boat for Tamatave, on the east coast of Madagascar. On the boat we joined our colleague in the Deputation work in Madagascar, Mr. Talbot Wilson, and with him were the three members of the Deputation from the Friends’ Foreign Mission Association, and one of the Deputation from the Paris Missionary Society. A voyage of seven days, calling on the way at ports on the north-west and northern coast of Madagascar, brought us to the Port of Tamatave, some 1,500 miles south of Zanzibar. From Tamatave we travelled by the splendidly engineered new French railway to Tananarive, a distance of 239 miles, passing on the way great lagoons near the sea coast, crossing picturesque rivers, traversing belts of beautiful forest, and rising by circular curves on the railway up the mountain side to the Central Plateau of Madagascar, some 4,000 feet above the level of the sea. As the train neared the capital it was joined by various missionaries who had come part way to meet us. At the terminus—a great modern station lit with arc lamps—nearly all the missionaries at work in the city and around it, and thousands of Malagasy Native Christians in their straw hats and white lambas, met us, and gave us a great welcome.
Map of Madagascar, showing L. M. S. Stations.
Madagascar is nearly 1,000 miles in length. Its area exceeds that of France, Belgium and Holland put together, but its population is less than one-fourteenth of that of these countries.
Tananarive is built upon a very narrow lofty ridge in the middle of far-spreading rice fields, bordered by ranges of hills and mountains. The ridge, which rises rapidly from the north, runs due south, and is crowned at its highest point by the Palace of the former kings and queens of the Island, which can be seen from a great distance around. The crest consists of a steeply-rising thoroughfare, from many points of which both horizons, east and west, can be seen. In the northern portion, known as Faravohitra, are several of the Society’s mission houses, and at the top is the Faravohitra Memorial Church. Continuing southward, and still rising for the greater part of the way, the British Consulate is passed on the right, and a short way beyond this on the left is the massive building, now known as the Palais de Justice, which was formerly the L. M. S. Theological College. After a slight depression the road winds steeply upwards, until, leaving the Palace of the Prime Minister on the left, and catching sight of the Memorial Church of Ampamarinana on the right, we arrive at the Queen’s Palace. The ridge then falls and rises again until its southern extremity is reached at Ambohipotsy, where stand another of the Memorial Churches and the present United Theological College of the L. M. S. and F. F. M. A., and some Mission houses. The view is one of great grandeur, especially looking to the west and to the south-west towards the rugged ridges of the Ankaratra mountains. Looking northwards one sees the wooded slopes of Ambohimanga, the ancient capital of Imerina, like a crouching lion dark against the distant hills. On the west, at the foot of the northern part of the ridge, is the great Analakely market, which on Fridays is visited by thousands of people, and adjoining the market is our handsome Analakely Church, while beyond are the Residency, the railway station and the shops and offices of the modern French town. A little above this the spire of the Ambatonakanga Memorial Church and the two large school buildings adjoining can be seen standing at the junction of two main roads, where the traffic is at its busiest. One of the features of the landscape in Tananarive is the large number of Church spires and towers which can be seen on the plains below. It is said that there are some 150 of them in sight, by far the greater number of them being now, or formerly, Churches connected with the London Missionary Society.
We had come to Madagascar from Central Africa, where missionary work was in its earliest stages. In the “great African Island” the contrast was very striking. There is only one brick Church in the Central Africa Mission, the rest being wattle-and-daub. In Madagascar there are many hundreds of spacious well-built brick Churches, and some handsome stone ones. In Central Africa the Church is in its infancy, and comprises less than 150 Church members. In Madagascar there are over 30,000 Church members, and nearly five times as many other native adherents. The magnificent results which have followed the work of the Society’s missionaries, under the blessing of God, are everywhere apparent. Wherever we went great crowds of Christian people gathered together to meet us as the representatives of the L. M. S. The Churches were nearly always full and often crowded to overflowing.