| Old Village Gateway with Circular Stone | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
| On the Coast Lagoons | [28] |
| A Forest Road | [32] |
| Low-class Girl fetching Water | [50] |
| A Sihànaka Woman playing the Vahiha | [50] |
| Bétsimisàraka Women | [58] |
| Hova Women weaving | [58] |
| Family Tomb of the late Prime Minister, Antanànarìvo | [66] |
| Royal Tombs, Antanànarìvo | [66] |
| Earthenware Pottery | [76] |
| Digging up Rice-fields | [76] |
| Pounding and winnowing Rice | [78] |
| Hova Middle-class Family at a Meal | [78] |
| Rocks near Ambàtovòry | [92] |
| Typical Hova House in the Ancient Style | [96] |
| On the Coast Lagoons | [106] |
| Transplanting Rice | [112] |
| Hova Tombs | [118] |
| Friday Market at Antanànarìvo | [120] |
| Ancient Village Gateway | [124] |
| A Forest Village | [134] |
| Chameleons | [136] |
| Anàlamazàotra | [146] |
| Memorial Carved Posts and Ox Horns | [156] |
| Blacksmith at Work | [156] |
| On the Coast Lagoons | [166] |
| Some Curious Madagascar Spiders | [168] |
| Sihànaka Men | [176] |
| Forest Village | [176] |
| A Wayside Market | [180] |
| Water-carriers | [218] |
| Hide-bearers resting by the Roadside | [230] |
| Bétsiléo Tombs | [230] |
| Memorial Stone | [234] |
| Types of Carved Ornamentation in Houses | [236] |
| ” ” ” | [238] |
| Group of Tanàla Girls in Full Dress | [242] |
| Tanàla Girls singing and clapping Hands | [242] |
| Tanàla Spearmen | [248] |
| Coiffures | [250] |
| A Forest River | [252] |
| Tree Ferns | [260] |
| Traveller’s Trees | [260] |
| A Malagasy Orchid | [272] |
| Malagasy Men dancing | [274] |
| Woman of the Antànkàrana Tribe | [278] |
| Woman of the Antanòsy Tribe | [278] |
| The Fòsa | [302] |
| Malagasy Oxen | [302] |
| MAPS | |
| Physical Sketch Map of Madagascar | [16] |
| Ethnographical Sketch Maps of Madagascar | [17] |
| General Map of Madagascar | [314] |
PHYSICAL SKETCH-MAP OF MADAGASCAR
showing lines of Forest, and limits of high land of Interior exceeding 2500 feet above Sea-level
ETHNOGRAPHICAL SKETCH-MAP OF MADAGASCAR
A NATURALIST IN
MADAGASCAR
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
THE great African island of Madagascar has become well known to Europeans during the last half-century, and especially since the year 1895, when it was made a colony of France. During that fifty years many books—the majority of these in the French language—have been written about the island and its people; what was formerly an almost unknown country has been traversed by Europeans in all directions; its physical geography is now clearly understood; since the French occupation it has been scientifically surveyed, and a considerable part of the interior has been laid down with almost as much detail as an English ordnance map. But although very much information has been collected with regard to the country, the people, the geology, and the animal and vegetable productions of Madagascar, there has hitherto been no attempt, at least in the English language, to collect these many scattered notices of the Malagasy fauna and flora, and to present them to the public in a readable form.
In several volumes of a monumental work that has been in progress for many years past, written and edited by M. Alfred Grandidier,[1] the natural history and the botany of the island are being exhaustively described in scientific fashion; but these great quartos are in the French language, while their costly character renders them unknown books to the general reader. It is the object of the following pages to describe, in as familiar and popular a fashion as may be, many of the most interesting facts connected with the exceptional animal life of Madagascar, and with its forestal and other vegetable productions. During nearly fifty years’ connection with this country the writer has travelled over it in many directions, and while his chief time and energies have of course been given to missionary effort, he has always taken a deep interest in the living creatures which inhabit the island, as well as in its luxuriant flora, and has always been collecting information about them. The facts thus obtained are embodied in the following pages.