3-077-716 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches in Madagascar: entrance to the Royal Palace, Antananarivo, 1890. 'Mrs. James Procter, who lived five years in Madagascar, and whose husband is now in the island, and has recently been exploring the region about Solary and St. Augustine's Bay,...has favoured us with the use of some photographs to furnish our Illustrations...The capital of the Hova kingdom, the city of Antananarivo, is finely situated on a hill of the Imerina uplands...It has a town population of ninety thousand, whose houses, covering the hill, are mostly of wood, square, with high thatched roofs, and the gables ornamented with projecting horns. But the principal buildings are of stone and brick, and some are handsome edifices. We give a view of the entrance-gate of the Royal Palace, which stands, with the halls of audience, in a large courtyard, and has a grand aspect, being surrounded by some arcades with rows of pillars above, its front rising in three storeys to 120 ft., with a width of 100 ft. and a depth of 65 ft. The two great halls, on the ground-floor, are elaborately painted with Moorish or Persian designs, and the floors are inlaid with beautiful varieties of wood'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.