29S VISITS TO MADAGASCAR chap. xi. 



days in that wood, and had nothing to eat but clay and water. 

 It was all water or marshy ground, and we found no place to 

 lie down and sleep on, except when we came to a tree, or a 

 piece of ground somewhat raised and dry. We frequently 

 came upon crocodiles, sometimes trod upon them, and when 

 we laid down at night we smelt them (near us)." 



Three of the fugitives were present when I first read their 

 narrative, and on my pausing and expressing my wonder, 

 asking if they really did tread on the reptiles, and inquiring 

 how they ever escaped, they said, when the crocodile was in 

 the water, or saw its prey before it, it was ferocious and irre- 

 sistible, but when they trod upon it in the swamp, it seemed 

 greatly frightened, and instead of attacking them, seemed 

 to try to get away, or to penetrate deeper into the mud. 



The writer of the account continues : " We did not expect 

 to live, or ever to see men again, for we thought we should 

 die in that swamp. But after nine days we came to an open 

 country, and when we had proceeded a short distance, we came 

 to a place where there were great numbers of water lilies 

 growing. We gathered and ate the leaves of the lilies, and 

 remained five days in the place where we found this food. 

 When we went on again we soon came to a broad river, where 

 we stopped two days, and cut a large quantity of long coarse 

 grass, which we tied in a bundle, to serve the purpose of a 

 raft ; we also made a rope of long grass with which to draw the 

 raft across the river. Then I swam with one end of the rope 

 to the other side of the river. My wife and a woman pushed 

 the bundle of grass into the water, placed their bundles and 

 the little child on the top of the raft of grass, and I pulled it 

 across, while the women swam one on each side of the bundle 

 to keep it upright, and so all reached the shore safely, though 

 the stream was rapid, and there were numbers of crocodiles in 

 the river." 



But to continue the narrative of my own journey. Soon 



