SNAKES 43 



mitigate the attacks of fever, and since the draining of the 

 marshes near Tamatave the town is said to be fairly healthy. 



The Betsimisaraka inhabitants of this coast are accustomed 

 to place their dead in rude coffins hollowed out of the trunk of 

 a tree and covered with a roof-shaped lid. But these are not 

 buried, but are placed on the ground in little groups, in a sheltered 

 grove of trees. In the case of wealthy people, the coffins are put 

 on a kind of trestle, and sometimes are protected from the rain 

 by having a shed fixed over them. This custom, it may be 

 imagined, is not, for the living, a pleasant mode of disposing of 

 the departed, and the presence of these little cemeteries may 

 often be deduced from the effluvium, even if they are not seen. 

 During the dry season one constantly meets with groups of 

 people carrying up the remains of their relatives, Hova who 

 have died on the coast, in order that they may be buried in their 

 ancestral tombs. Sometimes we have had our midday meal, or 

 have stopped for the night, in houses against whose outer walls 

 these wrapped-up corpses, fastened to long poles for carriage, 

 have been leaning. At one place where we stayed the people 

 were making cakes for the funeral feast, and in pounding 

 the rice for these the women made a special rhythmical beat 

 of their pestles on the top of the rice mortar, as well as on the 

 meal in the hollow of the mortar. 



But to return to our journey. At about two o'clock we had 

 to cross the lake, but as there was only one small canoe, it took 

 more than two hours to get all our baggage and men over. 

 We therefore strolled into the woods, finding plenty to interest 

 us in examining the orchids, ferns, and other plants, most of 

 them new to me. We captured a new and splendid spider, new 

 to my companion, who had made entomology his special study. 

 We were amused by the little land-crabs, with their curious 

 stalked eyes, folding down into a case, when not raised to look 

 about them. There were also many beautifully marked lizards, 

 as well as other interesting living creatures in these tropical 

 woods. The ferry was close to a village bearing the name of 

 Andavaka-menarana that is, " hole of serpents." Notwith- 

 standing this ominous appellation, we were not startled from 

 our path by even a solitary reptile, although a cave not far 

 distant is said to be a lurking-place for numbers of these creatures. 

 But on a subsequent journey along this coast I saw a large and 



