3-078-322 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Troubles in Madagascar: types of native soldiery, 1895. 'The Hova Army in Madagascar. The Queen's Guard; Hova Soldiery...The Hova native kingdom, in the Imerina central region of the large island of Madagascar, will be forced, early in the spring of this year, to test its defensive military resources in conflict with a French army. Under the English officer lately commanding-in-chief there, General Willoughby, who is likely, it is said, to be succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel or General Sherrington, this officer having arrived from Natal in November, the Hova troops have been organised, trained, and disciplined to respectable efficiency. Gliding barefoot through the dense forests and across the rugged hill-ranges of a country which has scarcely any roads and has its broad and deep rivers not furnished with practicable bridges, it is possible that the Hovas may, like the Japanese, display qualities of soldiership not to be despised. They have also some European field-artillery, not properly mounted, but capable of forming batteries at convenient points'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.