My companions on this journey were the late Rev. Dr Mullens, then Foreign Secretary of the London Missionary Society, and the late Rev. John Pillans, one of the directors of the same society, and most pleasant and genial companions they were. Dr Mullens was very fond of a joke and enjoyed recalling humorous passages from Dickens or from Punch; he was also a born geographer and had a wonderful eye for the beautiful and the picturesque in scenery. Mr Pillans was a graver man, but one of solid worth and good judgment; and in the tent which we carried with us we three had many a happy evening together. Like all journeys made in those days, this one was performed in the filanjàna or light palanquin; and not only did Dr Mullens, with an azimuth compass, take angles and bearings for the map, but he also took a number of photographs all along our route. I had with me a good theodolite, so that we were able to compare and check each other’s observations.
A few words may be said here about the position of the Antsihànaka province. Repeated reference has been already made in this book to the double belt of forest which runs for several hundred miles along the eastern side of Madagascar. A glance at a physical map of the island will show that, at about the seventeenth parallel of south latitude, this double line unites into one broader belt, becoming very wide west of Antongil Bay. It is the open country south of the junction of the two forests that forms the home of the Sihànaka tribe. This valley or plain, for it is enclosed on each side by forest-covered ranges of hills, is about thirty miles across; it is perfectly level, and the greater portion of it is marsh; and at the north-eastern corner of the marsh is a fine lake called Alaotra, which communicates with the sea by the river Màningòry. It seems probable that the people came up from the coast by the valley of this river, and then settled on the edges of the plain, as their villages are most numerous around the north-eastern bay of the lake; while there is a large tract of fertile country to the south of them which is almost entirely without inhabitants. The name of the people is no doubt derived from the character of the country they inhabit, for the verb mihànaka means to spread out as a liquid, as ink on blotting-paper, for instance. Hànaka is also used as a synonym for the words meaning lake, pool, etc. Until about the commencement of the past century the Sihànaka were independent of any external authority, but at that period they were conquered by the Hova, although not without a severe struggle. After that they quietly submitted to the central government, and until the French conquest (1895) their two chief towns were garrisoned by Hova officers and soldiers, as at the time of our visit. No European missionary had then lived in Antsihànaka, and the congregations and schools we saw, wherever we went, were largely the result of the work of a Hova evangelist, who lived among the people for two or three years.[16]
THE SIHÀNAKA
After two days’ journey over high moory country, and then over a range of mountains called Ambòhitsitàkatra, from which we took a number of compass bearings, we arrived on a Friday afternoon at the village of Anjozòrobé (“At much papyrus”), a place containing about seventy houses pretty closely packed together within a circular fence of prickly pear and other spiny shrubs. It was built on rising ground overlooking a level plain to the north-west, evidently a former lake-bottom, through which the river Mànanàra flows in a very serpentine course to join the Bétsibòka. We crossed the river, here about thirty yards wide, with a strong body of water, by a bridge of two massive balks of timber supported by a rough pier of stones in the centre, and then ascended by a very steep path to the neat chapel, which stood in a compound a little way from the village. We took up our quarters in this clean whitewashed building; and here I may remark that in former times the rude village chapels generally formed the missionary’s “Travellers’ Bungalow.” They were usually not encumbered with pews or seats, or, indeed, much furniture or fittings of any kind; they were more roomy than the native houses and generally much cleaner, at least they had no soot hanging in festoons from the roof; so that they formed very convenient resting-places for a missionary traveller, and a favourable place for meeting the people and prescribing for their ailments.
We had intended to proceed northwards on the following day, but as we had to pass through the inner belt of forest and enter on entirely unknown ground, as to which we could get no definite information with regard to villages or congregations, we eventually determined to stay at Anjozòrobé over the Sunday. Saturday morning was occupied in ascending a mountain, four or five miles distant to the north (Ambòhimiàrimbé—i.e. “The High Uplifting One”), to take bearings, etc., and the afternoon in taking photographs of the village and river valley.
AN EXTENSIVE VIEW
On Monday morning we resumed our journey northward, and towards midday entered the belt of forest which covers that western line of hills of which I have already spoken. We had been approaching it obliquely in a north-north-east direction for the last two days. An ascent of about five hundred feet brought us to the summit, for the road passes along the narrow knife-edge-like ridge of the very highest point, a hill called Ambàravàrambàto (“At the Stone Gateway”), having two heads of almost equal height, with a depression between them. These points, from their peculiar outline, gave us a useful landmark to connect our journey northwards with the ground we had already traversed. Soon after noon we stopped for a few minutes at the top, and had an extensive view all around us. North and south, the line of forest-covered hills dividing Imèrina from the lower plateau of Ankay stretched away on either hand into the far distance. Behind us were the bare hills and downs of Imèrina, before us the Ankay plain, many of the low hills covered, and almost every valley filled, with bright green woods. Beyond this were lines of hills increasing in height until they met the mountains of Béfòrona and Anàlamazàotra, clothed with the broader of the two belts of forest which run down the eastern side of Madagascar. Far to the north in the dim distance we could just see the southern portion of the Antsihànaka plain. A very steep descent, first down an exceedingly rugged kind of stone staircase, and then through dense wood, hardly allowing passage for the palanquin in several places, brought us down to a charming valley between two great spurs of the hills. After about an hour more we came to a little village, where we were glad to get some rest and food after six or seven hours’ hard travelling. The aneroid informed us that we had descended more than one thousand two hundred feet from the summit of the hill, and about seven hundred feet from the upper plateau of Imèrina. We had to pitch the tent in the open plain that night, for a village of which we had heard, and had expected to be a good-sized place, proved to be only a collection of eight or nine miserable huts, scattered about in twos and threes.
ANT-HILLS
The following day our journey northward was over a pleasant undulating country, but almost entirely uninhabited; here and there were solitary houses far apart from each other, but no villages. On the bare downs we frequently came across ant-hills, about two feet high and formed of the greyish soil. It is said by the people all over the island that a serpent called Rènivìtsika (i.e. “mother of ants”) is enticed by these ants into its nest, and is then fattened, killed and eaten by them. The Hova in the centre of the island, the Bétsiléo in the south, the Sàkalàva in the west, and Sihànaka in the north-east, all affirm that this is a fact; and it seems difficult to doubt their united testimony. After a long ride of six hours we at last came to a group of six or seven houses called Andrànokòbaka, where we rested for a time and had tiffin. This place appeared to be the first of the Sihànaka villages from the south. There was an evident difference in the appearance of the people; the women reminded me of the Bétsimisàraka on the east coast, and both men and women had their hair plaited in a great number of little ropes ending in a knot, and hanging loosely all round the head. The women and children, even those who had no kind of clothing, all had some kind of ornament: necklaces of red beads or silver chains, and armlets of silver, a striking contrast to the lower class of Hovas, who only put on ornaments on extraordinary occasions. The village smelt strongly of tòaka, the native rum, and the quantities of chopped sugar-cane, from which the spirit is made, lying about the place, all told of the liking of the people for strong drink.
