[Sidenote: MARKETS] A very prominent feature of the social life of the Malagasy is the system of holding large open-air markets all over the central province on the various days of the week. The largest of these is naturally that held in the capital every Friday (Zomà), at which probably from twenty thousand to thirty thousand people are densely crowded together, and where almost everything grown or manufactured in the province can be purchased. But two or three of the other markets held within five or six miles of Antanànarìvo do not fall far short of the Zomà market in size, especially those at Asabòtsy (Saturday) to the north, and at Alàtsinainy (Monday) to the north-east. To a stranger these great markets present a very novel and interesting scene, and a good idea may be obtained as to what can be purchased here by taking a stroll through them and noticing their different sections. In one part are oxen and sheep, many of which are killed in the morning, while the meat is cut up and sold during the day; here are turkeys, geese, ducks and fowls by the hundred; here are great heaps of rice, both in the husk, and either partially cleaned, as “red rice,” or perfectly so, as “white rice”; here are piles of brown locusts, heaps of minute red shrimps, and baskets of snails, all used as “relishes” for the rice; here is _màngahàzo_, or manioc root, both cooked and raw, as well as sweet potatoes, earth-nuts, arum roots (_saonjo_) and many kinds of green vegetables, and also capsicums, chillies and ginger. In another quarter are the stalls for cottons and prints, sheetings and calicoes from Europe, as well as native-made cloths of hemp, _rofìa_ fibre, cotton and silk; and not far away are basketfuls and piles of snowy or golden-coloured cocoons of native silk for weaving. Here is the ironmongery section, where good native-made nails, rough hinges, and locks and bolts, knives and scissors can be bought; and formerly were the sellers of the neat little scales of brass or iron, with their weights for weighing the “cut money,” which formed the small change of the Malagasy before foreign occupation. (The five-franc pieces were cut up in pieces of all shapes and sizes, so that buying and selling were very tedious matters.) Then we come to the vendors of the strong and cheap mats and baskets, made from the tough peel of the _zozòro_ papyrus, and from various kinds of grass, often with graceful interwoven patterns. Yonder a small forest of upright pieces of wood points out the timber market, where beams and rafters, joists and boarding can be purchased, as well as bedsteads, chairs and doors. Not far distant from this is the place where large bundles of _hèrana_ sedge, arranged in sheets or “leaves,” as the Malagasy call them, for roofing, can be bought; and near these again are the globular water-pots or _sìny_ for fetching and for storing water. But it would occupy too much space to enumerate all the articles for sale in an Imèrina market.