The following day was occupied in making preparations for the journey, purchasing a few of the most necessary articles of crockery, etc., and unpacking my canteen. This latter was a handsome teak box, and fitted up most neatly with plates, dishes, knives and forks, etc. But Mr Plant said that both the box and most of its contents were far too good to be exposed to the rough usage they would undergo on the journey; so I took out some of the things and repacked the box in its wooden case. Subsequent experience showed the wisdom of this advice, and that it was a mistake to use too expensive articles for such travelling as that in Madagascar, or to have to spend much time in getting out and putting in again everything in its proper corner. Upon reaching the halting-place after a fatiguing journey of several hours, it is a great convenience to get at one’s belongings with the least possible amount of exertion; and when starting before sunrise in the mornings, it is not less pleasant to be able to dispense with an elaborate fitting of things into a canteen. By my friend’s advice, I therefore bought a three-legged iron pot for cooking fowls, some common plates, and a tin coffee-pot, which also served as a teapot when divested of its percolator. These things were stowed away in a mat bag, which proved the most convenient form of canteen possible for such a journey The contents were quickly put in, and as readily got out when wanted; and, thus provided, we felt prepared to explore Madagascar from north to south, quite independent of inns and innkeepers, chambermaids and waiters, had such members of society existed in this primitive country.

[3] It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that for some years past Tamatave has been a very different place from what is described above. Many handsome buildings—offices, banks, shops, hotels and government offices—have been erected; the town is lighted at night by electricity; piers have been constructed; and in the suburbs shady walks and roads are bordered by comfortable villa residences and their luxuriant gardens.

CHAPTER III
FROM COAST TO CAPITAL: ALONG THE SEASHORE

TRAVELLING in Madagascar fifty years ago, and indeed for many years after that date, differed considerably from what we have any experience of in Europe. It was not until the year 1901 that a railway was commenced from the east coast to the interior, and it is only a few months ago that direct communication by rail has been completed between Tamatave and Antanànarìvo. But until the French occupation, in 1895, a road, in our sense of the word, did not exist in the island; and all kinds of merchandise brought from the coast to the interior, or taken between other places, were carried for great distances on men’s shoulders. There were but three modes of conveyance—viz. one’s own legs, the làkana or canoe, and the filanjàna or palanquin. We intended to make use of all these means of getting over the ground (and water); but by far the greater part of the journey of two hundred and twenty miles would be performed in the filanjàna, carried on the sinewy shoulders of our bearers or màromìta. This was the conveyance of the country (and it is still used a good deal); for during the first thirty years and more of my residence in Madagascar there was not a single wheeled vehicle of any kind to be seen in the interior, nor did even a wheelbarrow come under my observation during that time.

This want of our European means of conveyance arose from the fact that no wheeled vehicles could have been used owing to the condition of the tracks then leading from one part of the country to another. The lightest carriage or the strongest waggon would have been equally impracticable in parts of the forest where the path was almost lost in the dense undergrowth, and where the trees barely left room for a palanquin to pass. Nor could any team take a vehicle up and down some of the tremendous gorges, by tracks which sometimes wind like a corkscrew amidst rocks and twisted roots of trees, sometimes climb broad surfaces of slippery basalt, where a false step would send bearers and palanquin together into steep ravines far below, and again are lost in sloughs of adhesive clay, in which the bearers at times sink to the waist, and when the traveller has to leap from the back of one man to another to reach firm standing-ground. Shaky bridges of primitive construction, often consisting of but a single tree trunk, were frequently the only means of crossing the streams; while more often they had to be forded, one of the men going cautiously in advance to test the depth of the water. It occasionally happened that this pioneer suddenly disappeared, affording us and his companions a good deal of merriment at his expense. At times I have had to cross rivers when the water came up to the necks of the bearers, the shorter men having to jump up to get breath, while they had to hold the palanquin high up at arm’s-length to keep me out of the water.

GENERAL FOREST AND GENERAL FEVER

It was often asked: Why do not the native government improve the roads? The neglect to do so was intentional on their part, for it was evident to everyone who travelled along the route from Tamatave to the capital that the track might have been very much improved at a comparatively small expense. The Malagasy shrewdly considered that the difficulty of the route to the interior would be a formidable obstacle to an invasion by a European power, and so they deliberately allowed the path to remain as rugged as it is by nature. The first Radàma is reported to have said, when told of the military genius of foreign soldiers, that he had two officers in his service, “General Hàzo,” and “General Tàzo” (that is, “Forest and Fever”), whom he would match against any European commander. Subsequent events so far justified his opinion that the French invasion of the interior in 1895 did not follow the east forest road, but the far easier route from the north-west coast. The old road through the double belt of forests would have presented formidable obstacles to the passage of disciplined troops, and at many points it might have been successfully contested by a small body of good marksmen, well acquainted with the localities.

On the Coast Lagoons
Large dug-out canoes, propelled by paddles on each side, one man to each paddle