CHAP. VII. NATIVE GAEDENS. 171 



shoulders of the bearers, I passed through the village. 

 Two additional bearers were provided for the chaii-, two others 

 carried my camera and photographic apparatus, another the 

 camera stand and a small stool, and the fourth my carpet- 

 bag, a tea-kettle, and some crockery. Among the retinue of 

 my friend was the bearer of rice, and of meat purchased in 

 the market that morning. As soon as we had left the village, 

 the men set off at a short kind of trotting pace, in which the 

 bearers kept well together, at the rate of four or five miles an 

 hour. They continued without stopping for about three 

 hours, when we reached Vohidotra, a scattered sort of village 

 on the northern side of a tolerably broad piece of water 

 having an outlet to the sea. 



The morning had been fine, the sky partially covered with 

 clouds which tempered the heat. Altogether the journey 

 was unusually pleasant. The verdure of the plain, and the 

 foliage of the trees, chiefly the pandanus or vacoua, appeared 

 exceedingly agreeable and refreshing after the dry and barren 

 sand of Tamatave. At Vohidotra the men halted to rest and 

 cook their rice ; and while they were thus employed, I sallied 

 forth to the adjacent woods to look for plants. In the 

 gardens attached to the cottages, where French beans, garlic, 

 and pumpkins were growing, I was surprised to see beautiful 

 little dwarf plants of the vinca in full blossom ; and the blue 

 Ageratum mexicanwm, so carefully tended in our flower bor- 

 ders, covering the ground and the walks between the beds, 

 like a common weed. 



After walking for some distance, and passing one or two 

 enclosed spots which I was afterwards informed were burial 

 places, I entered the wooded parts of the district, and soon 

 found such numbers of orchids, growing so luxuriantly, and 

 in such picturesque positions, some of them in full blossom 

 and exhibiting, too, so many of their peculiarities of form and 

 habits of growth, that I hastened back to the halting place. 



