CHAPTER V 



FROM COAST TO CAPITAL : ALAMAZAOTRA TO ANTANANARIVO 



ON the Friday morning we left Beforona soon after five 

 o'clock and for nearly four hours were passing through 

 the forest, here known as that of Alamazaotra, over 

 the highest hills and the most difficult paths we had yet seen. 

 Certainly this day's journey was the most fatiguing of any on 

 the whole route, so that when we reached our halting-place I 

 was thoroughly exhausted and glad to throw myself on the floor 

 and sleep for an hour or more. At one part of the road there is 

 a long slope of clay, known as " Fitomanianomby," or " weeping- 

 place of the bullocks," so called from the labour and difficulty 

 with which the poor animals mount the steep ascent on their 

 way down to the coast. In coming down this and similar places 

 the utmost care was necessary on the part of the bearers ; but 

 they were very surefooted and patient and took every precau- 

 tion to carry their burden safely.. In ascending we often 

 required the help of all eight men to drag the palanquin up to 

 the top. The villages in the' heart of these vast woods are few 

 and far between. Our halting-place for breakfast consisted 

 merely of three or four woodcutters' huts in a few square yards 

 of cleared ground. 



Our afternoon's work was much the same as that of the 

 morning. In many places the rain had made a perfect slough 

 of thick mud, and our men had hard work to get through. I 

 could not cease to wonder how my heavy luggage was brought 

 along. For a considerable distance our way lay along a most 

 romantic-looking stream, whose course was broken by great 

 masses and shelves of rock, reminding me of Welsh river 

 scenery. Often in the higher parts of the road, where the 

 rivers down in the gorges were hidden by the dense masses of 

 wood, we could hear the roar of waters in the otherwise pro- 

 found stillness of the forest. At the chief pass in this chain of 

 hills we passed a tremendous cliff of rock, which rises sheer out 



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