The rainy season had fully set in and we prepared to settle down in the Capital for three or four months. Busy times were before us. We had to hold important consultations with the missionary brethren respecting the arrangements of the mission: we had correspondence to maintain with home: and there was much to accomplish in working out our numerous observations and framing maps of the Imerina and Betsileo Provinces. Our first work was to provide a suitable home for this period of our stay. Mr. and Mrs. Pillans found a neat little house on the east side of the City-hill: and with the help of an excellent native woman and her husband, intelligent, kind-hearted and upright people, they managed their novel housekeeping exceedingly well. Mr. and Mrs. Grainge kindly received me into their house; and until I finally left the city they provided so kindly and considerately for all my wants, that it became to me a very pleasant home.
Our house was situated at the end of the Faravóhitra hill; on a long clay spur projecting to the north and east, which spread out into a level terrace, with steep banks on its north and west sides. The house faces the west, and has opposite a noble mass of granite rock, above which stands conspicuous the Faravohitra Memorial Church. From the north side of the terrace we had a beautiful view over the Imerina plains. The wooded hill of Ambóhimánga; the solid arched ridges of Andringitra, the lofty peaks of Lóhavóhitra, and the broad massive hill of Ambóhimonóa, formed the outer border of the landscape. Naméhana was in the centre of the picture on its round hill; on the right was Iláfy with its green woods: while close before us were the large villages of Ankádifotsy and Manjákaráy, with their dark red soil, their neat new chapels, their numerous well-built houses and long walls.
Our house was limited in size, though it looked large; having but four rooms round a large central hall. It was built of sun-dried brick; had two gables on its west front; and a verandah all round. A weak point in the house was, that though boarded, it was on a level with the ground. The house was not native, but of English pattern, and would pass very well for an Indian bungalow. My own room was soon put in order: and with its camp bed and washing-stand, a solid table, a deep wardrobe, my travelling-trunks, and its little fire-place, it was a cosy, comfortable den. The broad shelves of the wardrobe contained my books, clothes and instruments: and kept my papers, maps and letters within easy reach. On the top were ranged a camera, my tool-box, a small chest of tea, and a supply of English stores. Here I passed many months of pleasant toil, editing the Conference Papers, conducting correspondence, drawing maps; and holding friendly consultations with numerous visitors, who came to talk over serious matters, or perhaps have a quiet chat over four-o’clock tea.
As in all Christian missions abroad, our family life was very simple. The meals were breakfast, dinner and tea: the English supper, as in other tropical countries, being omitted. Beef was the chief meat available; and occasionally good mutton, with the long, fat tail. Turkeys, ducks and fowls we could buy in abundance. The potatoes were moderately good; stewed peaches are a dish for a king; and peas are becoming common: but the country has few green vegetables like those of England. The Malagasy have no cakes and no bread. These are made in the mission families from flour imported either from England or the Cape. Good coffee is being grown on the island: but our tea and sugar, sauces, oils and pickles, were all imported. Good jam is made from the Cape gooseberry, well known in India, and also from the mango: but all the usual English jams were imported from home. Of eggs and milk we could obtain a good supply: and butter was made in the house; on the primitive system of shaking the milk in a bottle. The stock of rice in the markets is large: but we could not get for an English table the many finer kinds which are so abundant in India.
Our Malagasy servants were not nearly so skilful, so neat in their dress or so regular in their habits, as are servants in India. They have been under English training a comparatively short time; till recently many of them have not been able to earn money for themselves: and they have lacked the great motives to personal improvement and diligence by which the free service of India is stimulated. What curious costumes they would at times put on! What strange cookery they would produce! What vagaries they would be guilty of! Indian servants worry their mistresses enough in household arrangements: but I am afraid that the Malagasy servants are a greater worry still. My own servant was willing and attentive; but he was not strong: and certainly he went through a great deal and travelled far in the course of my wanderings in the island. His wages were six shillings a month for service; and two shillings extra for food: and on that magnificent sum he maintained a wife and two children; kept his house in repair; and subscribed systematically to his church funds. I learned much Malagasy from him: and with occasional interpretations of difficult matters from my host and hostess, we managed to understand each other tolerably well.
Our house stood within a large garden: and the pains taken by my hostess in cultivating it were rewarded by seeing it for months together bright and gay with flowers. Many of our English flowers grew readily: but nothing could equal the coxcombs in their beauty. The flowers were enormous: we had eleven in the garden, all handsome in form and of a deep rich crimson. But one, the pride of the garden, grew to be thirty-two inches in length and eighteen inches across: and when finally cut off, close to the green stem, it weighed two pounds and a quarter. It was a truly splendid flower.
Our garden was a very practical place also. We grew English peas, broad beans, French beans, carrots, mint and vegetable marrows. We had a large number of mango-trees, which yielded a good crop of mangoes, and several bibás or loquat trees, which also gave very sweet fruit. And several cucumber vines secured a regular supply of English cucumbers.
During the rainy season, from December to April, the weather was exceedingly pleasant. The sun was hot: but the air in Imerina is thin and the heat was not oppressive or fiery, as on the coast or in the plains of India. The thermometer usually stood in the shade at 75°. Under a strange but convenient rule the storms and thundershowers rarely fell before four in the afternoon. But often during the evening they would burst with great violence: the lightning would stream in chains of molten silver all over the sky; the thunder would follow in sharp, cracking peals with a terrific cannonade; and then the rain fell in torrents. During the morning the air was exquisitely fresh and crisp and pure: the sky was a pale, delicate blue; the light was sharp and brilliant; and we could distinctly see objects many miles away, as if they were close by.
The view from the platform on which our house stood, over the plain to the northward was wonderfully beautiful. Bordered by grand hills and studded with hundreds of villages and towns, Imerina is in many respects one of the most picturesque provinces of Madagascar. Here it is gay with the bright green of the young rice: there it is shaded with the dark woods of Iláfy and Ambóhimánga. Here the great turtle-head rock of Ambátomaláza stands conspicuous in the landscape, or the lofty pillars of the Three Sisters; there are the long slope of Fándravásana, the rugged peaks of Antóngona, or the towering masses of Ankáratra. Here lie the quiet waters of the Queen’s Lake, with its little island embowered in trees; there are seen clusters of villages with their brown huts, the green ramparts of Ambóhidrapéto or the lofty amóntana of Ambóhidratrímo. It was impossible to survey this wide-spread scene without feelings of exhilaration and delight. We know the golden glory which at sunset lights up the snows of Switzerland: but nothing can exceed the sharpness of the light as it plays over the landscape in the crisp, clear air of Madagascar after refreshing rain; and no pen can describe the deep golden blush which beautifies the red hills with an unearthly radiance when the autumnal sun sinks calmly to rest. Day after day, from the terrace of my Madagascar home I looked with feelings akin to rapture upon that wondrous scene. For I saw on every side not merely material beauty, the grace of form, rich tones and tints of colour, or the bountiful supply for a people’s wants; I beheld the proofs of a young nation’s progress; new houses rising in the villages; new houses of better pattern for the wealthier classes. I saw the fortressed hills deserted for the open plain; peace, security, mutual confidence had taken the place of intestine war: I saw the new school-house and the handsome church, intelligent children and devout congregations; I saw that men were living in truer fellowship with men, because together they were striving to rise higher towards God.
The great market of Antananarivo was a place full of interest to us strangers. It is called the Zoma or Friday, because it is held upon that day. It stands on the north-west of the city; on the hill which forms the outer side of the Analakely valley. It is lozenge-shaped, and its sides are about sixty yards long. It may once have proved spacious; but the requirements of the place have outgrown the accommodation and it is now far too small for its work. It is believed that thirty thousand people come into it from the country every Friday. The south side of the market extends to the public road, and there have been erected a line of booths, covering wooden platforms, which in Madagascar form the nearest approach to shops. Everywhere else there is a great absence of convenient arrangements for the display and sale of goods. A few squares of raised clay, a few wooden frames, a few large umbrellas, these are the only fittings. In most cases the traders just lay their goods on the ground on mats or a white cloth. There are also no fixed roads through and across the market-place, and it is as difficult to move through the dense crowd as through a herd of cows.