The dinner was, I think, the longest, and certainly was the noisiest, entertainment at which I have ever assisted. About a score of the officers were at the table, and seven of the ladies. After a long grace from the pastor, dinner was brought in, and consisted of the following courses:—1st, curry; 2nd, goose; 3rd, roast pork; 4th, pigeons and water-fowls; 5th, chicken cutlets and poached eggs; 6th, beef sausages; 7th, boiled tongue; 8th, sardines; 9th, pigs’ trotters; 10th, fried bananas; 11th, pancakes; 12th, manioc; 13th, dried bananas; and last, when I thought everything must have been served, came hunches of roast beef! All this was finished up with coffee. By taking a constantly diminishing quantity of each dish I managed to appear to do justice to them all. Claret went about very freely, and at length some much stronger liquor; and the healths of the Queen, “Our friends the two Foreigners,” then those of the Prime Minister, Chief Secretary, and Chief Judge, were all drunk twice over, the Governor’s coming last; all followed by musical (and drum) honours. As already remarked, it was the noisiest affair of the kind at which I have ever been present. There was a big drum just outside in the verandah, as well as two small ones, besides clarionets and fiddles, and these were in full play almost all the time. Then the room was filled by a crowd of servants and aides-de-camp, and the shouting of everybody to everybody, from the governor downwards, was deafening. The old gentleman directed everything and everyone, filled up everybody’s glass, and, in fact, filled up his own more often than was quite good for him, so that he became a little incoherent in the last toasts he proposed; so that I was glad when the finishing one arrived, and I could take my leave after nearly two hours’ sitting. But I was not to leave quietly; again I was taken by the hand, the big drum being hammered at in front of us all the way, and, followed by a posse of officers and ladies, was escorted home by the governor. My invalid friend could well have dispensed with the big drum; however, being a little better, he and I managed to say a few earnest words to them about “the praying”; after which they took their leave. I had afterwards to pay quite a round of visits to our men who were poorly, some with fever, others lame, with feet hurt with thorns, stumbling, etc.
A MELANCHOLY PARTING
It was fine on the following morning, and as my companion’s fever had left him, although he was still very weak, we determined to get off; but first, there were more visits to be paid, and more presents to be received. Mr Street left first at half-past nine, but I waited until all the baggage was off, and then went to wish our old friend the governor good-bye. But I was not to get away so easily; I was again taken into the chief house, the claret was brought out, and the Queen’s health and our own drunk with military honours. Then I turned to say Velòma; but no, the vigorous old gentleman was going to escort me out of town, and his wives were to accompany us. But some time elapsed in seeking bearers for them, during which I had to go to the lieutenant-governor’s and drink coffee. On returning to the courtyard I found the governor putting a couple of bottles of claret and another of rum into his palanquin, as well as glasses and cups. Sufficient bearers could not be procured for the ladies, so we wished them good-bye, and set off in the following order:—Soldiers, musicians, with drums, clarionet, and violin; “ny havantsika ny Vazàha” (our foreign friend); the lieutenant-governor; the governor; aides-de-camp, soldiers. And so escorted, with the drums, etc., in full play, we marched out of the town. I had supposed that as soon as we were fairly at the foot of the hill the governor would take his leave, but he went on and on for an hour until we came to a rapid stream, the Mànantsìmba. Here we halted; the claret was poured out for more health-drinking, with musical honours; and then the whole of the governor’s men were ordered to take me safely across the river, which they did. From the opposite bank I bowed and shouted my last adieux, and so parted from one of the jolliest old gentlemen I have ever met with in my travels. It struck me as irresistibly comic that, as soon as we had fairly started on our way from the river bank, the musicians struck up a most melancholy strain. As my men said, the governor appeared to be low-spirited at parting with us.
I must add a word or two more about this “fine old Malagasy gentleman, all of the olden time.” It appeared that he had been governor at Ankàrana for more than twenty years, and before then was lieutenant-governor at Mànanjàra. We were somewhat shocked to find that each of the three buxom ladies who accompanied him about was his wife, and further, that he had another as well, whom we did not see. The pastor told us that he had been admonished as to the impropriety of his conduct in this respect, but he had been unable as yet to make up his mind which of them to put away, and which to keep, out of the four. He seemed quite a little king in the district he commanded, and our servants told us that he was a most courageous old fellow, delighted to hear of there being any enemies to be met with anywhere, and going off to fight them with the greatest alacrity. Yesterday, when the feast was being cooked, he sat in the courtyard, gun in hand, shooting first a fowl, then a pigeon, and then a pig, all of which, in addition to what was already preparing, he ordered to be instantly cooked with the rest. They also say that he is very rich, owning five hundred cattle and two hundred slaves, and that he is always most hospitable to all strangers. Certainly we found him to be so. Besides the abundant kindness he showed us at Ankàrana, he sent with us an escort and guides, twelve soldiers, two officers, and a drummer, besides as many baggage bearers as we required to replace the men who were ill.
We were interested to find that many of our bearers met with relatives in these coast provinces. The mothers of several of them were brought up from these parts as slaves, when children, in Radàma’s cruel wars. The most remarkable circumstance was that our cook discovered that one of the governor’s wives at Ankàrana was his mother’s sister. And at the same place another of our men found that the chief people of the Taisàka village were his mother’s brothers.
PRIMITIVE DISHES AND SPOONS
Our lodging on the evening of the day we left Ankàrana was in another sample of the “well-dunged village,” although we procured a tolerably good house in it. While taking lunch in one of the other villages, we noticed the primitive dishes and spoons used by the people. The former consist of the strong tough leaf of the pandanus-tree, which is doubled over at one end so as to retain rice or liquid. The spoons are pieces of the leaf of the traveller’s tree, folded up so as easily to carry food to the mouth. This pandanus has a fruit, yellow in colour, and something in shape and size like a pineapple without its tuft of leaves. When dry it is brown in colour, and each hexagonal division when separated from the rest is like a tough wooden peg, and utterly uneatable.
A FUNERAL MEMORIAL
Outside a village called Iàboràno I noticed the first appearance of anything like a funeral memorial we have seen since leaving Bétsiléo. This consisted of four poles placed in a line, the two outer ones higher than the others, and the inner ones pointed in a peculiar fashion. These serve the same purpose as the upright stones called tsàngam-bàto in Imèrina. All through the Tanàla country and along this south-eastern coast we have seen no graves or memorials of the dead. I was told that each village has a large pit in, or on the borders of, the forest, where the dead are thrown and are not covered with earth. The corpses are wrapped in coarse matting made of rush.