Twelve months in Madagascar

by Joseph Mullens

A little north of Vavony, rocky hills, covered with wood, come down to the coast, and the inner lagoons are driven into the sea. We traversed one of these lagoons in a canoe for about three miles, and met with a strange experience. The lagoon was bounded by high hills, and at the bottom the mangrove was very thick. The water was not very deep, but it was full of small water-lilies, the leaves of which, on their under side, were a crimson pink in colour. The flower also was crimson. The water at first had a brilliant red tint, but, ere long, it became deeper, and it seemed to us all as if we were sailing on a river of blood. As the lagoon ended, the colour changed to a rich red gold.

Landing once more, we travelled to the clean village of Vavony, over a piece of country, which had all the appearance of a beautiful park. It contained sloping banks crowned with fir trees. Here stood the tree fern, and there the bamboo palm: here were fine specimens of the india-rubber tree with its glossy leaves; there tall, thick badamiers with their leaves of crimson; and there the path was arched by the pandanus. From some lofty trees hung huge, black, bees’ nests: the trunks of others were adorned with the Angræcum orchids, with their long spray of twelve white flowers; and from the strongest hung enormous creepers. Everywhere, winding in and out among the trees was the open grassy glade, on which a fine herd of red cattle was grazing.

From Vavony we had a canoe, and while the baggage kept the road, for ten miles we traversed a broad, still lagoon. It was bordered with high banks, covered with trees: and with two paddles, worked by strong arms, we had a delightful row to the village of Menarána, where we slept at the end of our second day. Early the following morning, we reached the Church Mission Station at Andevoranto, and put up in the empty mission-house. What a treat it was to spend a quiet day! We occupied the hours profitably, in readjusting baggage and stores, on the basis of the experience we had gained during our first two days’ travel. We also had pleasant interviews with members of the two congregations in this place and neighbourhood, and heard much from them respecting their religious wants. They are at present without a missionary. In the evening we had a heavy downpour of rain.

Continuing our journey on Friday morning, we turned our face at once towards the mountains: and for four hours we travelled in canoes up the river Ihároka and one of its tributaries. The river was two hundred yards broad, and the current, in its lower portion, ran about three miles an hour. Near Andevoranto, both sides of the river have great swamps, in which we saw growing many hundreds of the noble arum lily, the Astrapcæa Wallichii, with its thick trunk and broad scolloped leaves. Farther inland we came upon a row of the plants bearing the first flowers of the season: and they were in size and beauty so splendid, that a botanist like Mr. Ellis might well speak of them with enthusiasm. Our men paddled the canoe with spirit, and like boatmen in India, enlivened and regulated their stroke with measured cries and songs. Our water trip was exceedingly pleasant; light showers fell at intervals, producing numerous rainbows; beautiful flowers were growing on the banks, and birds of coloured plumage flew around us.

After a two hours run on a straight course, we came to the roots of the first hills; the river narrowed to a width of a hundred yards, the stream grew stronger, and became very winding. We passed several small villages, and soon left the main stream to turn into a little river, with a current of four miles an hour against us. There we cut the flowers of the Astrapæa. After a four hours’ pull in the canoe, we landed, and began our climb over the hills. The first hills were low; were beautifully rounded by water; and every hollow and valley was filled with fine specimens of the rofia palm and of the traveller’s tree. We made our first pause at Mánambonináhitra. This little town is the residence of the Lieutenant-Governor of the district, and as his brass band must live, they take the opportunity afforded by an English visitor’s arrival to do a stroke of business. The whole village turned out to welcome us, and the band played effectively and with energy, “See the conquering hero comes: sound the trumpet, beat the drums.” The incident would be remembered with feelings of satisfaction, both by my colleague and myself, if we had not learned that several other “conquering heroes” have passed through the village since our visit. Still surrounded with the rofia palm, having fronds thirty feet long and beautifully tinted with red, we continued our journey to Ránomafána, with its well-known hot springs, which we reached at sunset. Here the church table being in a dilapidated condition, I amused myself by mending it, and was caught in the act by a deputation, which arrived to offer us a welcome, and which watched with grave interest the progress of the repairs.

Around Ránomafána the country has many beauties. There is a fine amphitheatre of hills, from which here and there rise one or two lofty cones. The streams run deep and strong, over beds of quartz pebbles; the traveller’s tree grows in enormous numbers, and large patches of rich black soil appear amid the general masses of red clay.

West of Ambátoerána, and about ten miles from Ránomafána, we ascended a fine hill of bright red clay, which projects like a vast buttress into this amphitheatre of hills, and furnishes the road by which the next ridge is crossed. On reaching the summit of the pass and looking back over the undulating plain, I asked the bearers what the name of the hill was. With deep interest I heard their reply: “It is Tániakova, the weeping place of the Hovas.” I at once asked, “And where is the sea?” Without hesitation they pointed it out on the horizon, and showed us the houses of Andevoranto.

We were standing on the spot, sacred for ever to the sorrows of the Hova captives of former times, who here first caught sight of the sea, over which they were to voyage as slaves. In the wars of last century, and in the petty local contests which took place in various parts of the country, it was a constant practice to sell the prisoners taken in battle or captured in villages to the Arab merchants, who exported them as slaves. In these calamities, members of the highest families were involved as well as of the lowest. Children and young women were stolen from villages in the darkness of evening, and were never seen by their relatives again. The slaves were sold to the Mauritius, to Calcutta and Bombay, and even to the West Indies. The Arab merchants were the chief delinquents, but there were French and English also in the hateful trade. The suffering caused by it must have been overwhelming. The captives were marched from the interior in gangs, fastened to one another. Hova, or Betsileo, Tánála or Tankay, it mattered nothing to the cruel men whose property they had become. Their hearts must have broken long before the forest was passed. But tradition tells how the deepest sorrow broke forth afresh, as the gangs stood on this red pass, the outer boundary of the land of their people, and for the first time they beheld the “black waters,” over which they were to be carried never to return. It was Radáma who brought the wicked system to an end, when, at the suggestion of Sir Robert Farquhar, the Governor of Mauritius, he made a treaty with the English Government, by which the export trade in slaves was wholly done away. On the top of the pass there stands a pillar inscribed with the king’s name. The efforts of Sir Robert Farquhar, ably seconded by Mr. Hastie, drew from all classes of the people a warm regard towards the English nation, and gave to them an influence which others had never acquired, and which has been increasing to the present day.

Descending the ridge on its western side, we came into the valley of the Mahela River, rich with tropical vegetation. The ferns covered the slope of the hill in thousands, and were plants of the finest kind. The fronds of the harts’ tongues were a yard and a half long. The wild raspberry was common, and the men gathered capfuls of the fruit. The Mahela was thirty yards wide and four feet deep. Crossing it we climbed a lofty ridge of red clay, with a Hova guard at the top; and going down and up once and again at length reached the stopping station of Ampasimbé, where we spent a quiet Sunday.

By this time we had grown accustomed to our work, and had adopted a regular plan for our movements. Our rule was to rise at five o’clock, get an early cup of tea, start off at half-past six, and make one good journey before eleven or twelve in the day. Resting for a couple of hours, our bearers and ourselves secured a good meal; then made another journey between one and five o’clock, and rested for the night. The villages in which we stopped were very dirty, with middens of rotting leaves, with their smoky houses, in which soot is regarded with veneration as a mark of ancestral respectability, with their countless inhabitants, and their general disorder and filth. Twice a-day we had a house assigned for our use; sometimes with the hens and geese sitting, sometimes with the dogs and chickens turned into the street, but anxious constantly to gratify their domestic feelings and return home. The sleeping accommodation was varied. Sometimes the house was clean (for Madagascar); usually it was the opposite; the first and the last of the series were the dirtiest and smokiest of all. Our portable beds were a great comfort, they were so complete and convenient; our enamelled cups and plates proved most useful. But to get up at five A.M. daily, and double up all your property, in order to go on pilgrimage to some new place as dirty as the last, is trying to the feelings, even when it is a serious duty.