The pleasant scene at this village, as well as what we had witnessed at others, gave a cheering promise of what might be expected were the people more thoroughly instructed. In a short report supplied by Rabé, the native evangelist, he says that when he first went to Antsihànaka, “only a person could be found here and there who washed their clothes, for everyone’s dress was smeared with castor-oil, and they thought it would spoil their clothes to wash them, as they would soon be worn out; so that the clothing of the people was offensive to the last degree. For that reason the dark blue cotton was generally worn, as it was nearly black to begin with. But now there is hardly anyone who does not wash his clothes, and has not white dress. Not long ago, when it was evening, the young men in the villages used to form into two parties, and had violent boxing-matches all through the village, the women also often joining in the fray. But now no one practises this rough sport. Not long ago rum was what the people chiefly delighted in; and if any strangers who visited them were not made thoroughly drunk, the owner of the house was looked upon as inhospitable, although he gave them the best of everything to eat.” [Sidenote: EXPENSIVE FUNERALS] We left Màrosalàzana at one o’clock, and found outside the village something which gives the explanation of its name, “many poles”—viz. a group of more than twenty poles stuck in the ground close together, and holding ox skulls and horns. This was the largest group we had yet seen, and there also were many more lying mouldering on the ground. Besides these, there were several very high poles with forked tops, such as we had already seen at almost all the Sihànaka villages. These lofty poles are called _jìro_, a word which in Hova Malagasy signifies a “lamp.” We had already seen these on our journey northwards, but here was a larger number than we had hitherto met with. These _jìro_ are only raised in memory of a _male_ Sihànaka; to eulogise a woman, the rush mats and baskets which she made and possessed while living are arranged on poles by the wayside to meet the public gaze. These people spend a large amount of money and property on the funerals of their relatives. Mr Pearse gives the following account of what was expended at that of a man dying at a village called Màngalàza:—Thirty silk _làmbas_, to wrap up the corpse, value two hundred and sixty-nine dollars; a hundred oxen, value three hundred dollars; drink and food, principally the former, thirty-nine dollars’ worth; showing an expenditure of more than six hundred dollars on this particular funeral. (At that time a dollar was worth as much or more to the Malagasy as a pound would be to us.) [Sidenote: A WIDOW]