Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 May 1893 — The Island of Madagascar. [ARTICLE]

The Island of Madagascar.

The island has upward of nine millions of inhabitants, with nothing but footpaths for them to travel in. This singular state of affairs is accounted for by the fact that the reigning tribe is the Hovas, who arc a very jealous and savage people. They greatly fear white supremacy. and the Queen and her husband, the Prime Minister, are bucked up by the whole island in their belief that as soon as they allow roads to be made, white people will flock in and take possession of the country. While the French have a semi-protectorate over the island, they have never yet penetrated the interior of it, and it would take 10,000 men to do this. The island is infested with crocodiles to a dangerous degree. Mr. Taylor visited a “sacred” island in a lake where they were $n numerous as nearly to upset his boat and where there were hundreds of the reptiles twelve to fifteen feet long. The Island of Madagascar is about 1.000 miles long and 250 wide. The Capital is Autananarivo, where the Queen holds court in her palace and keeps up considerable show of ceremony. The hawk and the looking glass are their national emblems. In the Capital there are schools, both missionary and industrial, but elsewhere the country is uncivilized and savage. There are but few Europeans at the Capital. Bands of murderous robbers infest the country, and although the Queen gives every white man two soldiers to sleep in front of his door, even then life in Madagascar offers few charms to the European.— [New York Advertiser. Three tall men live at Castle Hill, Me. Allie, Eliliu and Elidad Frank are their names, and laid along in a line on the floor they measure twenty-one. feet to an inch in their stocking feet and without thefr caps on. Two of them are more than seven feet in height and tho other is a little, less. Old Mr. Frank, their father, is remembered as being taller thau any one of them. Their occupation is put down as woodsmen, fanners, hunters and horse-swoppers.