3-070-847 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sakalave policeman, Madagascar, 1881. 'We are indebted to Mr. J. N. Stone, Staff-Surgeon R.N., for several sketches of scenes and figures observed during the visit of H.M.S. Ruby, corvette, under the command of Captain C. E. Foot, to the coast of the Mozambique Channel and to the Island of Madagascar, in October last year. Captain Foot, with a party of officers and seamen of the Ruby, landed at Morondova, on the south-western shore of the island, and went up to Mohabo, a town eighty miles inland, the capital of the province of Menabe, to visit the Hova Governor of that province...[Our illustration shows one of the] Sakalaves, members of the subject race. They are constables or policemen told off by the chiefs to attend white traders, to protect their goods and establishments...There was [a] member of the force whose sole garment was a sort of plaid kilt. Their hair is made up into curious tufts'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.