CROCODILES 49 



the risk of crocodiles, which abound in most of the rivers of 

 Madagascar. 



These reptiles are so numerous in many parts as to be a great 

 pest ; they often carry off sheep and cattle, and not unfre- 

 quently women and children who incautiously go into or even 

 near the water. The Malagasy, however, have a superstitious 

 dread of these monsters, which prevents them from attempting 

 to kill them. They rather try to propitiate the creature by 

 prayers and offerings thrown into the water, and by acknow- 

 ledging its supremacy in its own element. At Itasy, a lake 

 fifty miles west of the capital, the people believe that if a 

 crocodile be killed a human life will, within a very short time, 

 be exacted by the animal's brother reptiles, as an atonement 

 for his death. Two or three French travellers once shot a 

 crocodile in this lake, and such was the people's consternation 

 and dread of the consequences that their visitors found it 

 expedient to quit the neighbourhood as quickly as possible. 

 The eggs of the crocodile are collected and sold for food in the 

 markets, and are said to be perfectly good, but I confess I never 

 brought myself to test their merits. 



We kept near the banks of the river, and so were able to 

 examine and admire the luxuriant vegetation with which they 

 were covered. In many places the bamboo is conspicuous, 

 with its long- jointed, tapering stem, and its whorls of minute 

 leaves, of a light delicate green ; but it is small here compared 

 with what we afterwards saw in the main forest. Plantations 

 of sugar-cane and manioc were mingled with banana-trees, 

 palms, pandanus and other trees, many not unlike English 

 forms. Numbers of great water-lilies with blue flowers were 

 growing in the shallow water, and convolvuli, as well as 

 numerous other flowers of new kinds and colours, everywhere 

 met the eye. The shores were flat at first, but became more 

 hilly, and the scenery more varied, as we proceeded. 



As we sailed up the river the traveller's tree (Ravenala 

 madagascariensis) became very plentiful, and soon gave quite 

 a peculiar character to the landscape. This remarkable and 

 beautiful tree belongs to the order which includes the plantains 

 and bananas, although in some points its structure resembles 

 the palm rather than the plantain. It is immediately recog- 

 nised by its graceful crown of broad green leaves, which grow 



