The sambas-sambas is a dish made of fine strips of beef broiled in fat, and of rice. It is customary, in the first month of the new year, to regale friends and relations who come to visit you with this dish. Every one takes a pinch of it, rises from his seat, turns to the right and to the left, and says, “May the queen live a thousand years.” After this he may eat as much as he likes of the preparation, or may leave it untouched, as he pleases. This ceremony is somewhat equivalent to wishing a happy new-year among us.
As we happened to arrive in the first month of the new year, and the queen wished to show Mr. Lambert all kinds of attention, she invited him to this feast, and my humble self and the other Europeans were included in the honor as friends of Mr. Lambert.
All the banquets to which friends are invited are not held in the royal palace, but at the house of the Lady Rasoaray, who is of very high birth, and whose spacious, richly-furnished dwelling is well adapted for such purposes. To eat in the palace of the queen, or, still more, in her company, would be considered too great an honor for a stranger; so far the condescension of this haughty, self-opinioned potentate extendeth not.
I made use of this day to visit the town, of which, however, I can say nothing more than that it is very bustling, and extends over a large space of ground, especially if the suburbs be taken as part of it. It is said, with its immediate environs, to contain 50,000 houses, or “roofs,” as they are called here, and 100,000 inhabitants. This estimate is probably much exaggerated; but certainly the proportion of dwellings is unusually great, from the simple reason that the houses themselves are particularly small, consisting of no more than one room, or at most but two. If the family is large, two or three additional little houses are built up around the original dwelling; all who have any pretensions to wealth have their kitchen under a separate roof; and, of course, the slaves are also quartered in various small houses. Still, I do not think Tananariva can contain many more than 15,000, or, at the most, 20,000 houses.
Mr. Laborde, for instance, is the owner of nine small dwellings, tenanted by seven free men and thirty slaves; here, then, the proportion of inhabitants to houses would be as four to one. But Mr. Laborde is a European, and does not live with his people in such a crowded manner as the natives affect—with them six, or certainly at least five, inhabitants may be reckoned to every roof.
June 1. At two o’clock in the afternoon we betook ourselves to the house of the Lady Rasoaray, and were conducted to a large hall, the walls papered in European fashion, and the floor covered with handsome mats. In the middle of the room stood a table, elegantly spread, in a style of which no prince in Europe need have been ashamed. The other arrangements in the room were simple, but tasteful. Many an English lady would have been exceedingly scandalized by the fact that in the room in which we were to dine stood two beds—two very handsome beds, with heavy curtains of rich silk. As I am, however, not an Englishwoman, but only a simple German, I took no notice of the circumstance, and the presence of the two beds did not prevent me from eating my share of beef and rice in all peace and quietness of spirit. These two dishes are the only ones admitted at the sambas-sambas, and water is the only beverage allowed on these occasions.
I particularly admired two silver vases, with carving on them in relief, which stood on the table; and my wonder rose considerably when I was informed that they had been executed by native artificers. They would certainly have met with high approval even in Europe. Like the Chinese, the natives are gifted in a high degree with the faculty of imitation, but they lack originality.
Among the high personages invited with ourselves to the feast were many who spoke either French or English, English being the more common. The knowledge of this language dates from the time of King Radama, in whose reign English missionaries came to Madagascar, and a certain number of young men were sent to the Mauritius or to England for their education.
The ceremony of the sambas-sambas was very soon ended, and we returned home early; in the evening we were surprised by a visit from Prince Rakoto. He brought with him the mother of his little five-year-old son, to introduce her to me. As I have already mentioned, the prince can not, according to the laws that prevail here, marry this woman, because she is a slave, and her son has, therefore, not the smallest claim to his father’s rank; nevertheless, they are both honored with the princely title. It may certainly be said that in this country the laws are of little importance in so far as they affect the ruler; they depend solely and entirely upon the will of the reigning sovereign; and as soon as Prince Rakoto comes to the throne, he can alter them at his pleasure, and make his former slave his queen and her son heir-apparent.
I have spoken of the character of this woman. As regards her beauty, if it is to be discovered, it must certainly not be judged of by European eyes, or the beholder should have lived long enough among the natives to have become accustomed to their ugly features, and to consider the least hideous among them as handsome.