This was a pleasant town of eighty houses, enclosing a rova and stockade: with abundance of cattle, pigs and fowls. The people were exceedingly intelligent and we found them hospitable and kind. The basin in which it stands is eight miles across; the land is grassy and level: several villages were in sight: and we judged that altogether there were four hundred houses in the town and neighbourhood. A fine gneiss hill Andriba, formed its northern boundary: and when we had rounded it, we found beyond a second basin, containing fine clumps of the rofia palm, and a few travellers’ trees. It was a charming spot, with small villages and rice cultivation. The basin was crossed by the river Kámolándi, which like the Máhamókamita, drains the eastern moors and passes to the west into the Ikopa. Half a mile beyond the river was the town of Malatsy (2140), the fifth and last of these garrison towns. The town has sixty houses; on the slopes there may be some ninety more; and about a hundred others scattered about the valley. Near the centre of the valley is a Sakaláva village, the people of which were greatly interested in my photographing, when I endeavoured to take successively pictures of the Andriba Hill and of the Rofia palms. Here once more the grass was on fire and the roaring flames passed within a short distance of our position. We secured valuable additions to our series of observations and carried our stations onward into the districts we have yet to traverse.
The religious and social condition of these five towns was a matter of serious concern to us all. The populations are not numerous: they are exiled: they are isolated. But they are important in themselves; and they have an important relation to the communities still beyond them. They are easy of access. They lie along the valleys at intervals of from six to ten miles, and small clumps of houses are found in their neighbourhood. East and west the country seemed entirely empty. No English missionary had visited them, till we went along the line. Mr. Matthews, their nearest neighbour, had been too occupied with the pressing work of his own district to see them personally: but he had several times sent a colporteur among them with books and Scriptures. The only other help they have received is from Hova officers and soldiers and their families, who have passed by them on their journeys northward or when they have come to settle on public duty in their midst. Naturally therefore we found their condition backward and needing much attention from Christian people.
Kinajy contains some active Christians, and the little chapel is not only well kept, but is usually well filled. There are sixteen church members in the community: many could read: four could write; and there was an earnest and persevering demand for books, which we were glad to supply. Ambohinorina has a little clay chapel: no school: scarcely one person able to spell out a few words. Yet they were most hearty in their hospitality and they seemed eager to learn. Ampotoka has a little chapel of reeds and mud. Two could read. A few knew the alphabet. There was not a Bible in the village; there was however one Testament. Altogether the people were very dark.
Mangasoavina was much more advanced. There were twenty who could read: many more knew their letters. Sixteen were baptized and form the church. They have one service on the Sabbath and one hundred and fifty people attend. They have two pastors.
The people were anxious to have a service during the evening of our stay; and Mr. Jukes gladly assented to their request. My colleague, Mr. Pillans, has given an interesting account of this little conference at which he was present. In going into the governor’s house where the people had assembled, he passed through the kitchen, where a fire was burning on the floor filling the house with smoke. In an inner room were thirty or forty people seated on the floor. In the midst stood a native lamp, with a thick wick; and a little girl fed the lamp from time to time by dipping a stick into a lump of grease and stripping it into the lamp with her fingers. The light was sufficient to make darkness visible: but scarcely enough to enable Mr. Jukes, though down on his knees, to read the texts to which his enquiring companions continually referred him. “We were anxious to learn what kind of teaching these people received, and enquired what the pastors taught. ‘To do no evil’ (they said) ‘and to love one another.’ ‘But what do they teach about Christ?’ ‘To observe his laws.’ ‘What do they teach about Christ himself?’ ‘That he was a substitute for the guilty.’ ‘What about the Holy Spirit?’ One said it was a difficult subject.—They had many questions to ask about the Bible and particular texts: some of which reminded us of questions which have occupied both learned and unlearned at home. ‘Who was Melchizedek?’ ‘Who wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews?’ ‘Why did Christ call himself the Son of man?’ ‘What is the meaning of the parable of the tares?’ and so on. The wife of one of the pastors, a daughter of the governor, took a leading part in this conversation. She seemed a most intelligent woman and an eager inquirer. All the people expressed themselves as most grateful for our visit and urged their need of help from the Imerina Mission. Mr. Jukes suggested that they should unite with their neighbours in the villages around and get a teacher from Imerina. They could easily support him and he would have a good sphere of labour.” They should also enjoy occasional visits from the missionaries in Vonizongo. The distance is not great: the influence and sympathy of an Englishman go very far with our native converts and encourage them much: and the assurance that they were known and watched and cared for by their Imerina friends would prove an invaluable stimulus to their improvement.
Beyond Malatsy came the second distinct section of our journey, a portion of the Noman’s Land of Madagascar. It took us two days to cross it. It is usually termed “the desert;” but that name is scarcely applicable to a land full of valleys, small streams of clear, fresh water, and chains of hills covered in part with wood. It is scarcely applicable to a region in the midst of which we found the river Ikopa, a fine broad stream, falling over huge rocks in noble cataracts and watering a thousand fair islands, that stud its bosom with bright and living green. The region is doubtless unpeopled: we saw not a hut on our line of march, not a blade of rice, not a yard of cultivation. It was interesting to us to meet this district once more. We have come upon it in the South; in the East; away in the West; and now in two places in the North. It is easily accounted for as the border land between the Coast tribes and the Hovas of Imerina and Betsileo, between whom till recent times there was perpetual feud; and therefore not to be cultivated with any hope of profit. It seems to form a complete ring round the central provinces: and it leaves the sea-coast a poor, ill-peopled district indeed.
Our bearers made elaborate preparations for crossing this region of “the unknown.” They spent half a day in pounding and husking rice; in eating hearty meals; and in sharpening their numerous spears. With a view to prevent the loss of stragglers, who might be sick or footsore, we arranged to march in military order: and while my colleague led the little column, Mr. Jukes and I agreed to bring up the rear. The announcement that we would do so, gave the liveliest satisfaction: and when we allowed Mr. Jukes’s empty rifle to be strapped outside his baggage as a warning to evil-minded persons, there stole over the countenances of our friends an expression of serenity and peace truly refreshing to behold. The Malagasy as a rule have immense faith in an empty gun, even though they have no powder near.
We left Malatsy early on Thursday, July 30th. The need of our precautions against straggling was soon seen. Within the first quarter of an hour of our march, seven men lagged behind for no solid reason whatever. But we whipped them up and kept them to their duty: and we reached the resting-place within a quarter of an hour of my colleague’s arrival. On two subsequent occasions we picked up a poor fellow suffering from fever, and thoroughly unable to manage his load. His companions readily shared it or carried it in turn; and we were able to bring the invalids safely in. Had we left them, it is certain that they would have travelled for miles in perfect loneliness and at the best would have arrived long after ourselves. It is these unhappy stragglers who alone are exposed to real danger.
We had a most pleasant march through the solitudes of this “lone land.” Our course lay up long valleys, over first one pass and then another; or over hard clay ridges, sprinkled with quartz gravel, and then along some clear stream, bordered with fresh, green wood. The valleys were simple and open and very green. The rofia palm grew more abundant: there were varieties of the acacia with their pinnate leaves; with a few specimens of the bamboo palm; and of the dábo, a coarse fig tree. The bamboo cane was common, with its tall stalk, from fifteen to twenty feet high, and its soft, white feather at the crown; there was the wild citron also. Everywhere the grass was strong and full of beauty. All the streams too had cut their way down to the rock. The eye could see that the ground was falling rapidly: we were continually descending the slopes of hills: the gullies in the red clay were deep and numerous: nowhere was the ground level, till we reached the rock.
Our first halt was by a pretty stream, under the Pass of Marókolohy. The men spread themselves out along the water and soon had their little fires blazing and the rice boiling in their iron pots and tin saucepans. We ourselves rested under a tree: and a small supply of English stores on this and similar journeys, tins of soup and meat and vegetables, good cocoa and first-rate tea, rendered us independent of surrounding circumstances and satisfied our English tastes. The ridge behind us was bold and high. When we climbed to the summit, we travelled some distance along the crest and found an excellent station for observations. Crossing a second ridge called Kalomainty, we descended into a green valley with a stream of water. At the north end of the valley the dried grass was blazing furiously, under the strong wind and it was not easy to avoid the flames. More than once our men had to run for it, and but for the hardness of their feet would have suffered from the hot ashes and stones on which they trod. Crossing a third ridge, we passed down a rocky valley and entered a piece of country, like an English park, well watered by the River Andránobé. All day the loneliness was most complete. Not a bird started from the brake, not an animal appeared in the wood. The silence was intense and Nature was here in complete wildness: for untold ages has she had her will: and calm, still beauty is the result. We had only one trouble, a plague of flies. We were followed by swarms of creatures with the look of a fly, but with the power of biting and stinging like a musquito. They settled everywhere, on the hands, the neck, the face: and unless soon driven off, inflicted an irritating bite. The men suffered from them as much as ourselves. Very strangely they disappeared at sunset and only a few followed us next day. It was just at sundown that we crossed the shoulder of a hill between two bends of the Andranobe, and encamped on its western arm under a fine wooded hill.