But to return to Isoavina. During our visit a great united meeting of the Isan-Efa-Bolana (four-monthly meeting) for the whole district was held in the Church. The schools were inspected and interviews held with the leading Christian workers. At this place, as at nearly every other place in Madagascar which we visited, presentations were made to us by the Native Christians in order to express their gratitude to the Society for sending us to visit them and their pleasure at seeing us. At various places we were the recipients of numberless turkeys, fowls and eggs. Offerings of other kinds of food were made, and we received more permanent reminders of our visit in the shape of lambas, walking sticks, lace, rafia work, embroideries, scarf pins, serviette rings, photographs, hats, addresses, etc. In their joy at seeing representatives of the Society in their midst it seemed that our friends could not do enough to express their appreciation and gratitude.
Some half-hour’s walk from Isoavina, the “Rest-House,” or Sanatorium belonging to the Mission is situated at Ambatovory in the midst of lovely country commanding fine views. It is here that many of the Imerina missionaries spend their hard-earned holidays.
During my stay at Isoavina I paid a surprise Sunday morning visit to a small outstation called Fararina. Every precaution was taken to conceal the fact that a visit was going to be made, so that the visitor might have an opportunity of seeing a country outstation under normal conditions. The Church was a small and primitive wattle-and-daub building, with a brick pulpit, covered with the commonest and most gaudy wallpaper. The earth floor was covered with matting. I was delighted to find that the chapel was practically full. Afterwards a Communion Service was held. The “bread” was nearly black. It was made of manioc root and coarse black sugar almost like treacle. The “wine” was pine-apple juice. The cups and plates were tin painted red. Although the visit was a complete surprise, the people would not let me go without making the customary gifts. As I descended the steep hill after the service some of the Church members overtook me bringing a fowl, and as I reached the foot others came running after me with eggs.
Ten miles north-west of Tananarive is Ambohidratrimo, where the late Mr. Baron lived for two years in the seventies. In 1901 Ambohidratrimo was re-opened as a residential station under the care of the Rev. F. W. Dennis, and it is now in charge of the Rev. H. A. Ridgwell. In past days it was the capital of one of the four small kingdoms into which the present province of Imerina was divided, and it still retains marks of its former importance. At the top of a lofty hill behind the Mission house the royal village once stood, where a century ago the Malagasy king ruled over his petty kingdom. There are still several royal tombs to be seen. Towards three-quarters of the horizon a great plain stretches out into the distance. In the middle of it towards the south-east amidst the rice-fields is Tananarive. All around are mountains. The country looked like a gigantic relief map, and the view must be similar to that to be seen from an aeroplane.
Ambohidratrimo is reached by a two hours’ ride in a pousse-pousse through rice fields and pine-apple gardens. In passing along the road I could see the women very busy in the rice fields, transplanting the young rice and working in water half up their legs. Pine-apples are very plentiful in the district, and three large ones can be bought for a penny. During our visit we attended two great meetings, one in the Mission Church consisting only of men, representing some sixty-eight Churches in the district, while the other, for women only, was held at an outstation in a large village Church with very few seats. The Church was crowded, most of the women being seated on the floor looking very clean, happy and bright in their white lambas. Many of them had walked for several hours to attend the meeting. The wife of the evangelist made an admirable president, and several women took part in the meeting.
Fourteen miles north-west of Ambohidratrimo is Vangaina, which became the residence of a missionary in 1903. It is the centre of fifty outstations, which are superintended by the Vangaina missionary, the Rev. Thomas Tester. The beautifully situated Mission house has been built on the hillside some distance off the main motor-car road from Tananarive to the Port of Majunga on the north-west coast. At the station there is a Church and a school. A united meeting for the Churches of the district was held at the outstation, Ampanotokana, at which forty-four Churches were represented, crowding the building to its utmost capacity.
Our journeys to these country stations afforded many opportunities of seeing various sides of native life. On the way to Vangaina we visited the large native market at Mahitsy on market day. We went up and down between the stalls in the market place. The vendors must have numbered many hundreds, and the people attending the market some thousands from all over the countryside. Amongst the articles for sale were straw hats and mats, spades and hatchets, great heaps of fine pineapples, sugar cane, pigs, cattle, rice, meat, great piles of a small kind of dried fish, salt, tinware, calico, black soap (like the soap our missionary, Mr. Cameron, taught the natives to make eighty years ago), buttons, biscuits, ducks, vegetables—all in the greatest profusion. Perhaps the most interesting feature was the space set apart for the blacksmiths, who were repairing spades, tinware, cart-wheels, etc., with the help of primitive forges. The blast was created by two upright cylinders of wood with pipes from the bottom of them to convey the wind to the charcoal fire. The air was driven into these pipes by means of plates of wood, which were forced up and down the cylinders by poles attached to the upper surface and worked by men’s hands. They formed very effective bellows.
Vangaina itself is a small village with two moats, each about twenty feet deep, in which banana trees were growing. An interesting feature in the village is a great tree in which I saw three enormous nests of the crested-umber built in the forks of the tree and made of hay, straw, grass, and twigs, each one being about six feet long by six feet wide. The bird is about the size of the domestic fowl with longer wings, and is called the Taketra. It is a bird of ill-omen, and in the old days when the ex-Queen used to come out to Ambohimanga she would turn back again to Tananarive if one of these birds crossed her path. The old Malagasy believe that these birds bring leprosy.
The most distant country station in Imerina from Tananarive is that of Anjozorobe, between sixty and seventy miles north-east of the Capital. On the way one passes through the town of Ambohitrolomahitsy, for some years the residential station for the district, at which the late Rev. Percy Milledge, and after him the Rev. W. Kendal Gale, carried on work. We attended three large meetings at this place. The journey thither to Anjozorobe led us over a range of mountains, one of which bears a Malagasy name meaning “The mountain which cannot be climbed.” Anjozorobe, which is beautifully situated, became a residential station in 1910, when Mr. Gale moved there from Ambohitrolomahitsy. He and his family live in a newly-erected Mission house bearing a Malagasy name, which being interpreted means “The house of sweet breezes,” now quite familiar to readers of the Society’s magazines. His missionary colleague, Mrs. Milledge, formerly Miss May Sibree, lives some distance away in the centre of the native village in a Malagasy house. Anjozorobe is the centre of a very extensive district, in which there are forty large outstations, and includes the northern part of the Bezanozano country, the southern portion of which is connected with the Isoavina Station. It was not my privilege to visit the Bezanozano, but one of my colleagues, Mr. Talbot Wilson, spent nine days in a tour in this country.
During our visit to Anjozorobe a large united meeting for the whole district was held at the Church. Visits were also paid to some of the nearer outstations. The schools were inspected, and a gathering held for the native workers. Much of Mr. Gale’s time is spent away from home, his itinerating work through a widespread district necessitating his absence for many days at a time. Mrs. Milledge, too, spends much of her life travelling between outstations, living in native houses, and holding classes for women and girls in both the Anjozorobe and Ambohitrolomahitsy districts.