A Sihànaka Woman Playing the Valìha
The strings are cut out of the bamboo, with calabash bridges
Our canoe voyage was nearly twenty miles in length, the last two or three up a narrow creek not above twenty or thirty feet in width. In one of the narrowest parts of the stream we were stopped by a tree which had fallen across the creek, just above the surface of the water. With some trouble and difficulty the canoes were each hoisted over the obstruction, the luggage being shifted from one to another. Some friends who came up about five months afterwards told me that the tree was still there. Probably it had caused a stoppage hundreds of times, yet no one dreamed of taking the little extra trouble necessary to remove it altogether from the passage. It was just the same in the forest: when a tree fell across the path, there it lay for months until it rotted away. Palanquins had to be hoisted over it, or with difficulty pushed beneath it, but it was never removed until nature helped in the work. It was no one’s business to cut it up, or to take it out of the way; there were no “turnpike trusts,” and the native government never gave themselves any concern about the matter.
COFFEE AND ORANGES
We were glad to land at Maròmby at ten o’clock, for rain came on, and before we were well housed it poured down heavily for some time. Here we got as dessert, after breakfast, a quantity of wild raspberries, which, while not equal in flavour to the English kind, are very sweet and refreshing. Close to the house where we stayed for our meal was a coffee plantation; the shrubs grow to a height of seven or eight feet, and have dark glossy leaves, with a handsome white flower. The small scarlet fruit, in which the seed—what we term the “berry”—is enclosed, contains a sweetish juice. The coffee plant thrives in most parts of the island, and its produce probably will become an important part of its exports.
Near the house were also a number of orange-trees, and here I had the gratification of seeing an orange grove with the trees laden with thousands of the golden-hued fruit. We were allowed to take as many as we liked, and as the day was hot and sultry we were not slow to avail ourselves of the permission. Perhaps there are few more beautiful sights than an orange grove when the fruit is ripe on the trees. The “golden apples” of the Hesperides must surely have been the produce of an orange plantation.
The rain ceased after a time, but we did not get off until past two o’clock, for our men became rather obstinate, and evidently wanted to stay at Maròmby for the rest of the day. This we were not at all disposed to allow. At last we started, and in a few minutes had a specimen of the adventures that were in store for us in passing through the forest. In attempting to ford a stream, one of my men suddenly sank nearly to his waist in a thick yellow mud. It was by the barest chance that I was not turned over into the water; however, after some scrambling from one man’s shoulder to another, I managed to reach dry land. There was a shaky, rickety bridge a little higher up the stream, and by this I contrived to get across.
DIFFICULT TRAVELLING
We now struck right into the hills, up and down, down and up, for nearly four hours. The road was a mere footpath, and sometimes not even that, but the bed of a torrent made by the heavy rains. It wound sometimes round the hills and sometimes straight up them, and then down into the valleys at inclinations difficult enough to get along without anything to carry but oneself, but, with heavy loads, requiring immense exertion. My palanquin described all kinds of angles; sometimes I was resting nearly on my head, and presently almost on my feet. When winding round the hills we were continually in places where a false step of my bearers might have sent us tumbling down sixty or seventy, and sometimes a hundred, feet into the valley below. A dozen times or so we had to cross streams foaming over rocks and stones, to scramble down to which, and out again, were feats requiring no ordinary dexterity. Again and again I expected to be tumbled over into the water or down the rocks, the path being often steeper than the roof of a house. Several times I got out and walked up and down the hills in order to relieve the men; but I afterwards found that I need not have troubled myself, as they easily carried me up much steeper ascents. Some of these scenes were exceedingly beautiful and, with the rushing, foaming waters, overhung with palms, ferns, plantains and bamboos, made scores of scenes in which a landscape artist would have delighted.
In passing along I was struck with the peculiar outline of the hills; they are mostly rounded cones or mamelle-shaped, not connected together in chains, but detached, so it appeared that road-making would be very difficult and would have to be very circuitous. In almost every sheltered hollow were clumps of the traveller’s tree, together with palms and bamboos. The hills increased in height as we advanced, while beyond them all in the far distance we could see the line of the mountains forming the edge of the central highland, and covered with dense forest in every part. The scene, but for the tropical trees, resembled the Lancashire and West Riding scenery, along the Todmorden valley. As far as I could make out, the hills appeared to be mostly of bright clay, interspersed with quartz. Great black masses of gneiss rock crop out on the sides of many of them in most curious, fantastic shapes.