CHAP. XI. PHYSICAL PECULIARITIES OF THE PEOPLE. 301 



projecting. The top of the head was rouud and full, the 

 lower part of the back of the head flat, and almost forming a 

 straight line from the back of the crown to the neck. The 

 hair was jet black, crisp, and sometimes curly, usually fastened 

 in two or three round balls at the side of the head, and braided 

 into a sort of queue behind. When inclined to be woolly, it was 

 loosely so. I never saw the hair of any Malagasy so woolly 

 as that of some of the African tribes, the most remarkable 

 instance of which to me was that of Sechele, the tall noble- 

 looking chief of Kolobeng, whom I saw at Cape Town, and 

 the covering of whose finely formed head hung down, not in 

 ringlets, but in cords of the most closely matted fine woolly 

 hair. 



In person, the Malagasy appeared to me generally well 

 formed, with perhaps some little disproportion in the short- 

 ness of the neck. The chest, however, was well developed, 

 the trunk broad, the limbs muscular, the gait firm, and the 

 complexion a rich warm brown. I scarcely saw a deformed 

 person in the countr}^ The women were generally covered 

 from the neck to the ankles; but the men at work in the 

 fields often wore a piece of cloth round their waists. Few, if 

 any, ornaments, except a crocodile's tooth, or beads on a string 

 tied round the wrist, were worn by the common people. 



Soon after seven in the morning we resumed our journe}^, 

 our company being now reduced to about seventy persons, 

 and the packages also being diminished to twenty-five. Our 

 route lay over a richly wooded fertile country, diversified by 

 masses of rock, chiefly quartz, sometimes of a beautiful pink 

 colour, and occasionally a species of basalt. 



Since we had left the lower country, the rofia had become 

 smaller and less frequent, but the traveller's tree was abund- 

 ant on the sides of the hills and in the valleys, and in every 

 moist part of the country, appearing at this elevation to 

 attain its greatest perfection. This tree, Urania speciosa, is 



