NATIVE MUSIC
At Ambàtoharànana, where we breakfasted, we were favoured with a little native music while our meal was being prepared. The instrument consisted of a piece of bamboo about four feet long, with parts of the strong outer fibre detached and strained over small pieces of pumpkin shell like the bridge of a violin. With this simple contrivance the performer produced a soft plaintive kind of music, not unlike the tones of a guitar. This instrument is called a valìha, and is played by the fingers. A simpler and ruder musical effect is obtained by a kind of bow of wood, with two or three strings, and to which, at one end, the half of a large gourd is fixed to give resonance; this is called lokàngam-bòatàvo (vòatàvo, pumpkin), but its sound is poor and monotonous.
Although the paths we traversed were most difficult, the scenery was singularly delightful. There are few more beautiful forms in tropical vegetation than the bamboo, which unites the most perfect symmetry and bright colour, and in some places a particular species[5] gave quite a special character to the scenery. The long elastic stems, thirty or forty feet in length, three inches or more in diameter at the base, and tapering to a fine point, were curving over the path in every direction, and with their feathery whorls of leaves, yellowish-green in colour, growing from every joint, were a constant delight to the eye. Sometimes a whole valley seemed filled with bamboos; while in others the rofìa palm and the tree-ferns were the prevailing forms.
RICHES OF THE COUNTRY
Our midday journey this day was a continual ascent, until we were evidently at a considerable elevation above the sea. From one ridge we had a most extensive prospect and could see the Indian Ocean fifty or sixty miles behind us, while before us was a yet higher chain of hills, dark with dense woods of the main line of forest. As we rode along, I could not but observe the capabilities of the country and its vast powers of production, were it brought extensively under cultivation. The country is rich also in mineral wealth—iron, gold, copper, and other metals, as well as graphite and probably also petroleum.
We came this day into a belt of tree-ferns, some of large size, with their great graceful fronds arranged horizontally in a circle round the top of the trunk. There were also numbers of pine-apples growing wild, with the magnificent scarlet flowers just developing into fruit. We descended to, crossed, and for some time went along a beautiful river, resembling in many parts the Dove at Dovedale, and in others the Wharfe at Bolton. The view from the top of an immense hill of the river winding far below was most charming. The paths by which we ascended and descended would have astonished us in England, but by this time a moderately level and smooth path had become an object of surprise. In some places there was only a narrow passage between rocks overhung with vegetation, most picturesque, but most difficult to travel by.
WEAVING
We got in early in the afternoon to Ampàsimbé, a rather large village. While waiting for dinner we watched the women at the opposite house preparing the material from which they make the rofìa cloths, called rabannas in Mauritius. It is the inner fibre of the long glass-like leaves of the rofìa-palm.[6] The cuticle on each side is peeled off, leaving a thin straw-coloured fibrous substance, which is divided by a sort of comb into different widths, according to the fineness or otherwise of the material to be made. The fibre is very strong and is the common substitute for string in Madagascar. In other villages we saw the women weaving the cloth with most rude and primitive looms, consisting merely of four pieces of wood fixed in the mud floor of the house, and a framework of two or three pieces of bamboo. The material they make, however, is a good, strong-looking article, with stripes of various colours and patterns woven into the stuff, and is extensively used by the poorer classes. With the same simple loom the Hova women make many kinds of woven stuffs; of hemp, cotton, rofìa fibre, and of this last, mingled with silk or cotton, very pretty and useful cloth of a straw colour, being made in this way. Of the strong native silk they also weave very handsome làmbas of bright and varied colours and patterns, such as used to be worn on all festive occasions by the higher classes, as well as the more sombre dark red làmbas which are used by all classes for wrapping the dead.
Bétsimisàraka Women
They are standing on a native mat outside a wooden house