MAJOR GRAVES AND THE HOVAS. 751 and the stamp mills were at work,was thecentre of the local mining industry. It was expected that the Hova army would have destroyed the buildings_and machinery as they retired southwards but the works were found almost uninjured,only one shed havingbeen burned.

The French expeditionary force halted for about two months at Mevatanana. This long delay proved in the end the source of heavier loss than all the fighting of the campaign. It was not General Duchesne's fault that matters were conducted in this way. It was the outcome ofthe unfortunate planimposed on himby the organisers of the expedition at the French War Office. The river transport beyond Maravoav had turned outa failure,because, exceptin the rainy season,whenoperations areimpossible, there was not enoughwaterintheIkopa and the Betsiboka to float the boats that ii<tu — 1 sent out from France. The supplies had, there!~re, to be brought up by land. An army of porters and a numerous train of pack animals would have solved the problem, by allowing the expedition to make use of the existing tracks of the country. But the wise men of Paris had decidedthat wheeled transport would be better, and had sent out some hundreds of newlyon his vanguard to Ampasirihy, half way between that place and Malatsy, and began to extendthe road for another twentymiles south. The Hovas had decided to make a stand a few miles beyond Malatsy. They had begun to throw up lines of entrenchments across the track leading southward from Malatsy, their centrebeing at thehillof Andriba, a bold mass of gneiss rock rising some hundredsof feetabove the valley. The position could not be easily turned, and the French officers afterwards said that if it had been held by any ordinary troops it wouldhave beenallbut impregnable.

The Hovas had so far declinedthe help of any-European officers. But theynow asked Major Graves, formerly of the Royal Artillery, who had offered them his services, to proceed to Andriba with reinforcements, complete the ftification of the position,and act as military _viser to the Hova commanders on the spot. Graves acceptedthe hopeless task. He found a most unsatisfactory state of things at Andriba.

About 10,000 men had been concentrated there, and some heavy guns of longer range than the light French mountain batteries had beenplaced in position. But there was much sickness in the camp, there was very little ammunition, and no system of supply to feed the troops, many ot whom were half starved. In Madagascar the accepted method of supplying the armies was that men called out for service should bring a certainamount ofprovisions with them. When this was exhausted they went away to get more, and often failed to reappear. Thus a Malagasy army was a variable quantity of continually changing elements. Under the wretchedconditions of service there were numerous desertions. A great reserve camp had been formed near the capital, but even here the men were short of food, and to check the tendency to desert there were horrible military executions, the unfortunate deserters being burned at the stake.

designedlight carts for thepurpose. The carts could not be used without aroad toput themon, and the army was kept at work road-making, under the tropicalsun,in thelow-lyingunhealthy coast districts. No wonder that fever and dysentery began to rapidly thin the ranks of the expedition. Every post along the road from Maravoay toMevatananais marked by a French cemetery.

Another fight tookplace during the long halt. Misinterpreting the French inaction as a sign of weakness, the Hovas, towards the end of June, tried to moveroundthe French flank, to cut the communications with Maravoay. On the 30th they were attacked by a French column sent out to check the movement. The encounter took place near the villageof Tsaroatra, to the east of Mevatanana. With a touch of their old savagery, the Hova soldiers threw off their uniforms and went naked into battle. They broke and fled before the first salvo of the French guns, and the invaders collected on the field the clothes of the fugitives, most 01 their equipment,all their cannon,and hundreds of their rifles.

By the end of July the first section of the road was in working order, and stores were accumulating atMevatanana. Duchesne pushed Graves did what he could to strengthen the position at Andribaand to organisethe defence.

With any ordinary troops he would have attempted to harass the French advance and break in on their long line of communications, but with such " soldiers" as he had, the most he could hope was that they would make a stand behind their entrenchments. To the last he washampered by the Malagasy generals, who in their obstinate ignorance refused to act on his suggestions. At last the French were coming. They were advancing slowly along the fifty