248 REV. R. BARON ON THE 
for they are brown and withered. Is it surprising, then, if some 
of the natives think that you are dabbling in the black art, and 
that your plants, in the form of some strange and mysterious de- 
coction, are to supply, it may be, a potent rain-medicine or a 
love-philter, or a disease-preventing physic? For among the 
natives themselves there are many herbal quacks, who, for a con- 
sideration, are able, not only to prescribe for the cure, aud even 
prevention, of disease, but also to furnish charms against fire or 
tempest, locusts or lightning, leprosy or lunacy, ghosts, crocodiles 
or witches. The explanation which I have most frequently heard 
given, however, by the more intelligent of the natives as to the 
use of the dried plants is that the leaves are intended to be em- 
ployed for patterns in weaving. 
It is not, then, the natives that you have to fear in regard to 
your collections of plants, it is the weather—it is those heavy 
showers that, unless protected with extreme care by waterproof 
coverings, sueceed in soaking your specimens and your drying 
paper, so that you have occasionally to spend half the night in 
some dirty hovel in doing what you can, by the aid of a large fire, 
to save your collection from destruction. 
There are many discomforts, too, connected with botanizing in 
Madagascar, which it is not necessary to mention here. Suffice 
it to say that all the difficulties and discomforts are far more 
than outweighed by the pleasure you gain in the exercise—a 
pleasure which is enhanced by the consciousness that you are 
probably the first that has ever plucked the flowers from Nature's 
bosom in that particular locality, and that a large number of the 
specimens will probably prove to be new to science. 
The fullest liberty to gather plants is allowed to the botanist. 
There are no laws which forbid his roaming at will amid the ex- 
teusive forests, or whieh prevent him from breaking off whole 
branches of trees, or, if need be, even felling the trees themselves. 
In the open country, too, he may wander to the right hand or to 
the left, or in any direction he pleases, without having the uncom- 
fortable feelings and apprehensions of a trespasser. The traveller 
may occasionally be prevented from collecting mineral specimens, 
but he is never prevented from gathering plants. 
In Madagascar a considerable area is covered by primeval 
forest. On the eastern side of the island (that is, the part east- 
ward of the highest range of mountains which forms the chief 
watershed) there is a forest which extends probably 800 miles 
