corundum, geology.11, Madagascar.12, gems

It is evening in the Madagascan town of Andilamena. In a small restaurant, three Hogmies and one Malagasy pore over a map, intensely focused on a blank spot where no road goes, miles from the nearest settlement. The Hogmies have traveled halfway around the world to visit this miniscule cartographic smudge of tightly wound contour lines. For it is here that Madagascar’s finest sapphires are said to be found. But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. Let me begin a bit further back... My first recollection of Madagascar was grade school, where we dutifully learned that a prehistoric fish, long thought extinct, had been fished from the coastal waters of this errant isle. Later, in gemology class, my teacher again brought up the subject of this forgotten land, mentioning that the famous French naturalist, Alfred Lacroix had written a paper about it (Un Voyage au Pays des Béryls). From that moment on, Madagascar became known to me not just as something out of a Jules Verne novel, but as the “Beryl Island.” The Island of Madagascar is an anomaly in many respects. While lying just 400 km from the coast of Africa, it was not settled until roughly 2000 years ago, and not by Africans, but by adventurous sailors from the Malayo-Indonesian Archipelago, some 6400 km to the east. Today the country’s human population is a tumultuous stew spiced with Malay, African, Arab, French, Chinese and Indian ingredients.