28 GENERAL FOREST AND GENERAL FEVER 



screw amidst rocks and twisted roots of trees, sometimes climb 

 broad surfaces of slippery basalt, where a false step would send 

 bearers and palanquin together into steep ravines far below, and 

 again are lost in sloughs of adhesive clay, in which the bearers 

 at times sink to the waist, and when the traveller has to leap 

 from the back of one man to another to reach firm standing- 

 ground. Shaky bridges of primitive construction, often con- 

 sisting of but a single tree trunk, were frequently the only means 

 of crossing the streams ; while more often they had to be forded, 

 one of the men going cautiously in advance to test the depth of 

 the water. It occasionally happened that this pioneer suddenly 

 disappeared, affording us and his companions a good deal of 

 merriment at his expense. At times I have had to cross rivers 

 when the water came up to the necks of the bearers, the shorter 

 men having to jump up to get breath, while they had to hold 

 the palanquin high up at arm's-length to keep me out of the 

 water. 



It was often asked : Why do not the native government im- 

 prove the roads ? The neglect to do so was intentional on their 

 part, for it was evident to everyone who travelled along the 

 route from Tamatave to the capital that the track might have 

 been very much unproved at a comparatively small expense. 

 The Malagasy shrewdly considered that the difficulty of the 

 route to the interior would be a formidable obstacle to an in- 

 vasion by a European power, and so they deliberately allowed 

 the path to remain as rugged as it is by nature. The first 

 Radama is reported to have said, when told of the military genius 

 of foreign soldiers, that he had two officers in his service, 

 "General Hazo," and "General Tazo" (that is, "Forest and 

 Fever "), whom he would match against any European com- 

 mander. Subsequent events so far justified his opinion that 

 the French invasion of the interior in 1895 did not follow the 

 east forest road, but the far easier route from the north-west 

 coast. The old road through the double belt of forests would 

 have presented formidable obstacles to the passage of dis- 

 ciplined troops, and at many points it might have been 

 successfully contested by a small body of good marksmen, 

 well acquainted with the localities. 



It may be gathered from what has been already said that 

 travelling in Madagascar in the old times had not a little of 



