CHAPTER XXXVII.

MADAGASCAR.

This large island, which has been termed the Great Britain of Africa, is situated off the south-eastern coast of that continent. It is about 950 miles long from north to south, while its average breadth in its southern half is about 250 miles, increasing towards the centre to 350 miles, from which it diminishes northward to a point in the form of a long irregular triangle. Its total area exceeds that of the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, being nearly equal to that of France. It is distant about 300 miles from the nearest point of Africa across the Mozambique Channel.

Madagascar was first visited by Europeans in 1506, when Lawrence Almeida, the Portuguese Viceroy of India, touched at the coast on his way to the East. It had, however, been known to the Moors and Arabs for a long period previously, and a considerable commerce was carried on by them with the ports on the north-west coast. Information more or less accurate had also been collected about the country by early travellers, especially by the celebrated Marco Polo, by whom it is called Magaster.

From private individuals of French origin, traders and planters, the country has at various times received much benefit by the introduction of improved systems of cultivation and instruction in the arts of civilised life; but the greatest impetus to its progress was given by the treaty of friendship, made in 1817, between the native king, Radàma I., and the British Government.

It is hardly necessary to say that, as yet, railways are unknown in Madagascar; but it is not so generally known that there are no roads, in our sense of the word, yet existing in the island. All kinds of mer

chandise are brought up from the coast into the interior upon men's shoulders. If one wishes to travel oneself, there are only two modes of conveyance-the canoe, and the palanquin, which is the conveyance of the country; for the island does not boast of a single wheeled vehicle of any kind, "not even a wheelbarrow," says a missionary lately returned from the island. He thus describes one of his travelling experiences during his journey to the capital :—

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"In attempting to ford a stream, one of my men suddenly sank nearly up to his waist in a thick yellow mud. It was by the barest chance that I was not turned over into the water; however, after some scrambling from one man's shoulders to another, I managed to get out and reach dry land. There was a shaky rickety bridge a little higher up the stream, and by this I contrived to get across.

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We now struck right into the hills--up and down, down and up-for nearly four hours. The road was a mere footpath, and sometimes not even that, but merely the bed of a torrent made by the heavy rains. It wound sometimes round the hills and sometimes straight up them, and then down into the valleys, at inclinations difficult enough to get along with nothing to carry but oneself, but with heavy loads it was almost impossible to keep one's footing. My palanquin described all kinds of angles; sometimes I was resting nearly on my head, and presently almost on my feet. When winding round the hills, we were continually in places where one false step on the part of my bearers might have sent us tumbling down a hundred feet into the valley below.

"A dozen times or more we had to cross streams foaming over rocks and stones, to scramble down to which, and out again, were feats requiring no ordinary dexterity. I often expected to be tumbled over into the water or down the rocks, the path being often steeper than the roof of a house. Several times I got out and walked up

and down the hills in order to relieve the men ; but I afterwards found that they carried me without fatigue up much steeper ascents. Some of the landscapes were exceedingly beautiful, and with the rushing and foaming waters overhung with palms, ferns, plantains, and bamboos, made scores of scenes in which a painter would have delighted."

The vegetation is interesting and exceptional, but the animal life is still more so, and, in the words of Dr. Sclater, Secretary of the Zoological Society, "presents one of the best-known and strangest anomalies in geographical distribution." This zoological peculiarity consists as much, or more, in what is wanting as in what is present. Separated from Africa by a channel not 300 miles broad at one point, we should have supposed that Madagascar would partake to a great extent of the same characteristics, as regards animal life, as does the neighbouring continent; but it is, really, remarkably different. There is an extraordinary absence of animal life, especially in the larger species of mammalia; and this remark applies not only to the forests, but to every known part of the island.

First of all, the large carnivora are all wanting; there are no lions, leopards, tigers, panthers, or hyenasnothing larger than a wild cat and a small species of wolf being known. The large thick-skinned animals, so plentiful in every river and forest in Africa, have no representatives in Madagascar; no elephant browses in the woods, no rhinoceros or hippopotamus lazily gambols in the streams. The numerous species of antelope, gazelle, deer, and giraffe which scour the African plains are entirely absent, and, excepting two varieties of ox, there is no specimen of this useful class of mammals. Even the horse has been introduced from Europe, while its cousins, the zebra and the quagga, have no place in the Madagascar fauna. The order of mammalia most developed is the four-handed, or quadrumana; but this

again is represented by only a single group, the lemurs, which are the most characteristic animals of the island.

There are no true monkeys or apes, nor does the

gorilla put in an appearance. The lemurs are quite distinct from all these, and are very pretty creatures, bearing but little resemblance to the half-human grotesque appearance of some of the quadrumanous animals, or to the savage character of the larger apes and baboons. The head with its muzzle is like that of a dog; one species has a large and long bushy tail barred with black-and-white, which is generally curled round the back and neck when the animal is at rest. Another variety has a curious development of hair on the face, giving it the appearance of possessing a pair of very bushy white whiskers. They are gentle and affectionate in disposition, and being easily tamed are often kept as pets.

As far as is yet known, the mammalia of Madagascar consists of only forty-nine species-an extraordinarily small number for such a large island; and of these, twenty-eight, or nearly two-thirds, belong to the Lemurida. Still stranger is the fact that these animals are allied to Asiatic rather than to African forms.

The Malagasy (as the people of Madagascar are called) have no national coinage, all the money in circulation being foreign; the Spanish dollar is the standard coin. from which all amounts are reckoned. In paying wages a large variety of European and American money is often brought together; Sardinian, Belgian, Austrian, and Italian coins are found mingled with Mexican, Bolivian, Peruvian, and other South American dollars, as well as with those from the United States.

But the strangest part of the business is that all sums below a dollar in value are obtained by cutting up the coin into pieces of all shapes and sizes, and weighing it by means of neat little scales and weights, which every one carries about with him. Buying and selling

is therefore a very tedious process, at least to Europeans; but the Malagasy, like all Easterns, enjoy nothing better than to watch others engaged in making a bargain, and at the same time to join in the discussion, and offer their own opinions. The high relative value of money may be seen by the minute fractions into which a dollar is divided. In each dollar there are eight sikàjy (about sixpence); each sikàjy is divided into nine èranambàtra, and each èranambàtra into ten vàryventy, or the weight of a plump grain of rice; so that a dollar is divided into 720 parts.

Yet even these, as it might seem to us, inappreciably small sums will purchase a certain quantity of some kinds of food; and as field labour is paid for only at the rate of from twopence to fourpence a day, and skilled artisans receive only from fourpence to eightpence a day, the relation between the price of provisions and the scale of wages is not very disproportionate. The necessaries of life are certainly more easily procured by the very poor in Madagascar than in England.

Four weights marked with a government stamp are used in weighing money: the loso, or half-dollar; the kiròbo, quarter-dollar or shilling; the sikàjy, or sixpence; and the róa-vaomèna, equal to fourpence. Other amounts are obtained by varying these in the opposite scales, and adding grains of rice.

During the short reign of Radama II., which at first promised so much for the material advancement of the country, it was intended to issue a national coinage; and a beautiful profile was taken of the King's head by Mr. Ellis for the dies. Like many other projects, this was abandoned at Radàma's death; but it is probable that the intention will soon be resumed, now that the country is opened to European enterprise, and commercial treaties have been concluded with England, France, and the United States of America.