As Ambinàny, the Tanàla[28] chief, whose village we were bound for, did not make his appearance, we went off in the afternoon to another village, Iòlomàka, about three or four miles away to the south-east. It was a cold unpleasant ride in the drizzling rain. We reached the village, which is situated on a bare hill, in an hour and a quarter, and with some difficulty found a tolerably level place on which to pitch the tent, but everything was wet. The rain came down faster than ever, and began to come through the canvas in some places. During the afternoon we in our tent formed for the villagers a free, and evidently popular, exhibition, which might have been entitled, “The Travelling Foreigners in their Tent.” We and our belongings, and our most trivial actions, were the subject of intensest interest to the people. They came peeping in and, uninvited, took their seats to gaze. I suspect they thought we travelled in a style of Oriental magnificence, for my companion’s gorgeous striped rug evidently struck them as being the ne plus ultra of earthly grandeur. But we did not look upon ourselves this evening quite in that light; for the slightly higher ground on two sides of the tent led the water into the structure, and there was soon a respectable-sized pool on my friend’s side of the tent, above which the boxes had to be raised by stones and tent-hammers; while the drip upon our beds raised the probability that we might be able to take our baths in the morning before getting up. It was our dampest experience hitherto of tent life.

The following evening found us at Ivòhitròsa, after one of the most difficult and fatiguing journeys we had ever taken in Madagascar. It was quite dark when we arrived here, wet, weary, muddy and hungry, having eaten no food since the morning.

INTERESTED PUBLIC

But to begin at the beginning. Bed was so much the most comfortable place, with a wet tent, a small pond at one end of it, and a mass of mud at the other, that we did not turn out so early or so willingly as usual, especially as there was a thick mist and heavy drizzle, as there had been all night. The general public outside, however, evidently thought it high time the exhibition opened for a morning performance; and so, without our intending it, there was a performance, which, if there had been a daily paper at Iòlomàka, might have been described as consisting of five acts or scenes, as follows:—Scene first: Distinguished foreigners are seen lying in bed, so comfortably tucked up that they feel most unwilling to get out on to the wet and muddy floor. Curtains only half drawn (by an eager public) during this act. Scene second: Somewhat of a misnomer, as D. F. were, by the exercise of some ingenuity, not seen during the operations of bathing and washing. Scene third: D. F. seen by admiring public—who again admitted themselves—in the act of brushing their hair and performing their toilet. Scene fourth: D. F. seen at their breakfast; the variety of their food, dishes, plates, etc., a subject of mute amazement. Scene fifth and last: D. F. seen rapidly packing up all their property for their approaching departure. N.B.—Probably their last appearance on this stage. We packed up in the heavy drizzle, and fortunately, just as we were about to start, three or four Tanàla came up and agreed to be our guides. We had to wait until they had their rice, but at last we got away, soon after ten o’clock, rather too late as it turned out.

Our way for more than two hours was through the outskirts of the forest: a succession of low hills partially covered with wood, and divided from each other by swampy valleys. In these we had two or three times to cross deepish streams by bridges of a single round pole, a foot or two under water, a ticklish proceeding, which all our luggage bearers did not accomplish successfully. After crossing a stream by the primitive bridge of a tree which had fallen half over the water, we entered the real forest, our general direction being to the south-east.

And now for an hour and a half we had to pass through dense forest by a narrow footpath, where no filanjàna (palanquin) could be carried (at least with its owner seated on it). Up and down, down and up, stooping under fallen trees, or climbing over them, soon getting wet through with the dripping leaves on either hand, and the mud and water underfoot—we had little time to observe anything around us, lest a tree root or a slippery place should trip us up. At two-fifteen we came to an open clearing, and thought our difficulties were over, but presently we plunged into denser forest than ever, and up and down rougher paths. Notwithstanding the danger of looking about, it was impossible to avoid admiring the luxuriance of the vegetation. Many of the trees were enormously high, and so buttressed round their trunks that they were of great girth at the ground. The tree-ferns seemed especially large, with an unusual number of fronds; and the creeper bamboo festooned the large trees with its delicate pinnate leaves.

A DEEP GORGE

It soon became evident that we were descending, and that pretty rapidly. For a considerable distance we had a stream on our left hand, which roared and foamed over a succession of rapids, going to the south-east; and every now and then we caught glimpses of the opening in the woods made by the stream, presenting lovely bits of forest scenery in real tropical luxuriance. The sun shone out for a few minutes, but presently it clouded over, and heavy rain came on. The increasing roar of waters told of an unusually large fall, and in a few minutes we came down an opening where we could see the greater part of it, a large body of water rushing down a smooth slope of rock about a hundred feet deep, and at an angle of forty-five degrees. Three or four times we had to cross the stream, on rocks in and out of the water, with a powerful current sweeping around and over them. We found after a while that we had come down to the side of a deep gorge in the hills which rose hundreds of feet on each side of it, and down which the stream descended rapidly by a series of grand cascades to the lower and more open country which we could see at intervals through openings in the woods.

At half-past four we emerged from the forest and came down by a steep slippery path through bush and jungle. And now there opened before us one of the grandest scenes that can be imagined. The valley, down which we had come, opened out into a tremendous hollow or bay, three or four miles across, and more than twice as long, running into the higher level of the country from which we had descended. The hills, or, rather, edges of the upper plateau, rise steeply all round this great bay, covered with wood to their summits, which are from two thousand to three thousand feet above the lower country. Between these bold headlands we could count four or five waterfalls, two of them falling in a long riband of foam several hundred feet down perpendicular faces of rock. Between the opening points of this great valley, three or four miles apart, could be seen a comparatively level undulating country, with patches of wood and the windings of the river Màtitànana. On a green hill to the north side of the valley was a group of houses, which we were glad to hear was Ivòhitròsa, our destination. This hill we found was seven hundred feet above the stream at its foot, but it looked small compared with the towering heights around it. At last we reached the bottom of the valley, crossed the stream, and presently commenced the steep ascent to the village. It was quite dark before we reached it, muddy, wet and tired out; we had been eight hours on the way, and five and a half on foot over extremely rough and fatiguing paths. The native chief and his people had overtaken us in the forest and went on first to prepare a house for us.

A STRIKING PICTURE