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CHAP. XU. VILLAGE MARKET IN ANKOVA. 331 one of a party travelling with us — were able to cast it to the required distance, while some could scarcely lift it. When they had finished their sport, we resumed our journey, and, about an hour before noon, reached Ankara Madinika. This was the first village in Ankova, the central province of the island. It was market day, and a number of men and women had goods, viz. rice and other kinds of grain, roots, vegetables, poultry, raw cotton, pet birds in cages, &c., spread out on the ground, or exposed in baskets, by the side of the road, as we entered the village. I afterwards walked through the market, asking the price of some of the articles, and purchased some ready cooked sweet potatoes and manioc, which were exceedingly good. The houses here were more substantially built than those we had passed, but dirty inside. The people were somewhat fairer than those in the lower provinces. There did not seem to be much traffic in the market, though a considerable number of people had come together. Food already cooked is generally offered for sale in the Malagasy markets, but the only kinds of cooked food which I saw were manioc and sweet potatoes, which were apparently in considerable demand. There were neither fish, nor eggs, nor locusts; the season was too early for the latter, which generally pass over the central provinces during the spring of the year, and cause great destruction among the fields and gardens. The locusts generally fly within two or three feet of the ground, and, as soon as their approach is perceived, the people rush out, and with great clamour endeavour to strike them down, or enclose them in their lambas, while the women and children gather them up in baskets from the ground, and detach their legs and wings, by shaking them from one end to the other of a long sack, in the same way that grocers clean their raisins. The legs and wings are then
