290 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. chap. xi. 



wisdom and goodness, greatly increased our enjoyment of the 

 scenery. 



After proceeding about a couple of hours, and passing 

 Marovata and Batrasina, two villages on our right, standing 

 on mounds of sandstone, and the straggling village of Maro- 

 mandia, stretching along the top of the high land on our left, 

 we left the broad river, and entered a narrow creek between high 

 banks of clay. Several birds here attracted my notice, among 

 them a pretty little purple-coloured kingfisher. But my 

 attention was chiefly arrested by the flowers on the banks of 

 the narrow stream, amongst them a plant which looked like 

 a variety of herbaceous hibiscus, with bright yellow flowers, 

 and gigantic arum, A. costatum, or A. colocasia, which grew 

 by the edge of the water to the height of ten or twelve feet, 

 and so near that I could reach them on both sides as we 

 passed along. 



But the most magnificent objects were the fine trees of 

 Astrapcea Wallichii, or viscosa. The name of this Malagasy 

 plant was derived from the word for lightning, on account of 

 the brilliancy of its flowers; and Sir Joseph Paxton and 

 Dr. Lindley have thus spoken of A. Wallichii : — " One of 

 the finest plants ever introduced. And when loaded with its 

 magnificent flowers, we think nothing can exceed its gran- 

 deur."* I had seen a good sized plant growing freely at 

 Mauritius, but here it was in its native home, luxuriating on 

 the banks of the stream, its trunk a foot in diameter, its 

 broad leaved branches stretching over the water, and its large, 

 pink, globular, composite flowers, three or four inches in 

 diameter, suspended at the end of a fine down-covered stalk, 

 nine inches or a foot in length. These hanging by hundreds 

 along the course of the stream, surpassed anything of the 

 kind I had seen, or could possibly have imagined. I 



* Paxton's Botanical Dictionary, p. 33. 



