Tamatave, where we landed, is a large village, but the houses, or rather huts, have generally a dilapidated appearance.  There are a few good houses, belonging to foreigners and to the government officers.  We were amused by seeing slaves filling thick bamboos six or seven feet long with water from a well.  The water is pulled up in a cow horn instead of a bucket, while the bamboo takes the place of a pitcher.  We visited the market.  The vendors sat in the centre, or at the side of platforms made of sand or mud, on which the articles were piled up.  We found rice, maize, millet, mandioc, plantains, oranges, pine-apples, and many other fruits.  All sorts of poultry were to be seen, and the butchers had their meat arranged before them cut up into pieces on broad plantain leaves.  The women were dressed very much in articles of European manufacture; their hair, which is jet black, was arranged frequently in light curls or knots, which has a far from picturesque effect.