242 MALAGASY RASPBERRIES 



inches square on their backs and suspended by a cord from the 

 neck ; this is called londo, and is used to protect the child from 

 the sun or rain, as it lies in a fold of the mat above the girdle. 

 Some of the men wear a mat as a Idmba, and only a few have 

 Idmbas of coarse rofla or hemp cloth. The people here blacken 

 their teeth with a root, which gives them an unpleasant ap- 

 pearance as they open their mouths ; not all the teeth, how- 

 ever, are thus disfigured, but chiefly those at the back, leaving 

 the front ones white ; in some cases the lower teeth are alter- 

 nately black and white. 



The morning of one of our four days at Ivohitrosa was em- 

 ployed in trying to get a good view of the largest of the water- 

 falls which pour down into the large valley already mentioned. 

 Mounting a spur of the main hills, we had a good view of this 

 chief fall up a deep gorge to the south, and so opening into the 

 main valley as not to be visible from the village. This is 

 certainly a most magnificent fall of water. The valley ends in 

 a semicircular wall of rock crowned by forest, and over this 

 pours at one leap the river Matitanana. Knowing the heights 

 of some of the neighbouring hills, we judged that the fall could 

 not be less than from five hundred to six hundred feet in depth, 

 and from the foot rises a continual cloud of spray, like smoke, 

 with a roar which reverberates up the rocky sides of the valley ; 

 even from two or three miles' distance, which was as near as we 

 could get, it was a very grand sight. 



While on this little excursion we had a feast of another kind. 

 On our way home we came across a large cluster of bushes full 

 of wild raspberries. This fruit is common on the borders of 

 the forest, but we never before saw it in such quantities, or 

 of so large a size, or of so sweet a taste. The Malagasy rasp- 

 berry is a beautiful scarlet fruit, larger than the European 

 kind ; and while perhaps not quite equal in flavour to those 

 grown in England, is by no means to be despised ; and we were 

 able on that day to enjoy it to our heart's content. 



During our stay at Ivohitrosa we were surprised and delighted 

 with the brightness and intelligence of many of the native boys. 

 Although the dialectic differences of the Tanala speech are 

 many as compared with the Hova form of Malagasy, we ob- 

 tained a large vocabulary from them as well as names of the 

 forest birds and animals, and also those of trees and fruits. 



