In front of the principal building a handsome spacious court-yard has been left; around this space stand several pretty houses, all of wood. The chief building is, in fact, uninhabited, and contains only great halls of state and banqueting-rooms; the dwelling-rooms and sleeping-rooms of the queen are in one of the side buildings, communicating by a gallery with the palace.
On the left, the “silver palace” adjoins the larger one. It takes its name from the fact that all the Vandyked ends with which the roof is decorated, and the window and door frames, are hung with innumerable little silver bells. This palace is the residence of Prince Rakoto, who, however, makes very little use of it, generally living at his house in the city.
Beside the silver palace stands the monument of King Radama, a tiny wooden house without windows; to this fact, however, and to the farther circumstance of its being built upon a pedestal, it owes its sole resemblance to a monument.
The singular custom prevails in Madagascar, that when a king dies, all his treasures in gold and silver ware and other valuables are laid with him in the grave. In case of need, the heir can dig up the treasure, and, so far as I could ascertain, this had been done in every instance.
Radama’s treasure is only estimated at 50,000 piastres, but his father’s was valued at a million. The treasure or property of the present reigning queen is computed, according to the account I received, at between 500,000 and 600,000 dollars, and her yearly income at 30,000 to 40,000 dollars. The latter sum she is able to add annually, almost without deduction, to her fund, for she incurs no expense in her government or for her personal wants. As to the first, the whole burden falls upon the people, who have to work without pay; and with respect to the latter, the queen is the owner of the land, and possesses a great number of slaves, who have to provide every necessary for her household. Even the very clothes she wears are mostly made of materials produced in the country, and woven and prepared by male and female slaves.
Among the natives at Tananariva there are said to be some who have property to the amount of several hundred thousand dollars; but they make a secret of their wealth, for if the queen should obtain intelligence of the whereabouts of such a treasure, the wish to seize it and carry it off might very probably enter her royal mind.
The whole wealth of the island in ready money is estimated at one million dollars at most.
I do not grudge the queen the treasure she has accumulated; but it would be a fortunate thing for the population of the island if it were to be buried very soon, in company—of course—with its gracious possessor. She is certainly one of the proudest and most cruel women on the face of the earth, and her whole history is a record of bloodshed and deeds of horror. At a moderate computation, it is reckoned that from twenty to thirty thousand people perish annually in Madagascar, some through the continual executions and poisonings, others through grievous labor purposely inflicted, and from warfare. If this woman’s rule lasts much longer, the beautiful island will be quite depopulated; the population is said to have already shrunk to half the number that it comprised in King Radama’s time, and a vast number of villages have disappeared from the face of the land.
Executions and massacres are often conducted in wholesale fashion, and fall chiefly upon the Seklaves, whom the queen seems to look upon with peculiar hatred; but the Malagaseys and the other nations are not much less distasteful to her; and the only tribe that finds any favor at all in her eyes is, as I have already said, the Hovas, from whom she herself is descended.
These Hovas were once the most scorned and hated of all the races in Madagascar; they were regarded as the Pariahs are regarded in India. Under King Radama, however, and especially under the present queen, this race has distinguished itself, and attained the first place by dint of intelligence, bravery, and ambition. But, unhappily, the race has not been improved by prosperity, and the good qualities of the Hovas are more than overbalanced by their evil propensities: Mr. Laborde even declares that the Hova embodies in himself the vices of all the tribes in the island. Mendacity, cunning, and hypocrisy are not only habitual, but cherished vices with him, and he tries to initiate his offspring therein at the earliest possible age. The Hovas dwell among themselves in a continual state of suspicion, and friendship is with them an impossibility. Their cunning and slyness are said to be incredible: the most practiced diplomatists of Europe would be no match for them in these qualities.