CHAPTER XVIII

SOUTHWARDS TO BÉTSILÉO AND THE SOUTH-EAST COAST 228

Why I went South—How to secure your Bearers—The Old Style of Travelling—Route to Fianàrantsòa—Scenery—Elaborate Rice Culture—Bétsiléo Ornament and Art—Burial Memorials—We leave for the Unknown—A Bridal Obligation—Mountains and Rocks —Parakeets and Parrots—A Dangerous Bridge—Ant-hills—The Malagasy Hades—Brotherhood by Blood—Bétsiléo Houses—“The Travelling Foreigners in their Tent”—A Tanàla Forest —Waterfalls—A Tanàla House—Female Adornment