When I saw this funeral conducted in such truly European style, I thought, as I had frequently done before, what a strange country this Madagascar was, and what striking contrasts were found among these people--cultivation and savagery, imitation of European manners and customs and the rudest barbarism go here hand in hand. One finds here, as in Europe, all the titles of rank and nobility, from the prince down to the lieutenant: many of the nobles often go about in European garb; many speak and write English or French, and the rich dine off plate, and possess handsome, well-furnished houses. Farther imitations of our European customs are seen in the etiquette with which the queen surrounds her own person, the ceremonious splendor she seeks to impart to her court, the solemn excursions to her pleasure palaces, the fancy balls, the great dinners, the funerals of high personages, and other occasions of the kind.
The industrial education of the people has also made great progress in certain districts; and it is easy to see that, if properly cultivated and directed, industrial arts would soon attain a higher development. Thus, as already stated, the goldsmiths and silversmiths furnish specimens that excite my unqualified admiration; the women silk-weavers make very pretty pieces from native silk; and Mr. Laborde turns out from his various factories of native workmen all kinds of weapons, even to small cannon, and powder, as well as glass, soap, wax-lights, rum, and the most delicious liqueurs.
With respect to the cultivation of the mind and heart, the inhabitants of Madagascar have not sought to imitate the Europeans. In this particular, indeed, many of the wildest tribes, who have scarcely come into communication with Europeans at all--for instance, the Dyaks of Borneo; the Afoxes, in the island of Celebes; the Anthropophagi, in the interior of Sumatra, and others--stand far above the Hovas and Malagaseys. Incredible as it may appear, the latter have no religion at all--not the slightest idea of a God, of the immortality of the soul, or even of its existence. The queen, I was told, certainly worships a few household idols, but she places far less reliance on these than on the verdicts of the Sikidy; and when a missionary once spoke to her of the immortality of the soul, she is said to have considered him mad, and to have laughed aloud in his face. The people are allowed to worship any thing they like--a tree, a river, or a rock--but belief in Christ is strictly forbidden. With the exception of the few who have become converted to the Christian faith in spite of the queen’s prohibition, the bulk of the people believe in nothing at all, at which I wondered the more when I considered that some of the races living in Madagascar are descended from the Arabs and Malays, nations who in the earliest times had some ideas of God and of religion.