70 FOREST SCENERY. 



influence upon the distribution of animal life ; while in con- 

 sidering the botany, it is of course obvious that they do not 

 merely influence this latter, but that the Madagascar flora to 

 a large extent consists of this circling girdle of woods. Be- 

 sides, however, this forest region, which extends for so many 

 hundreds of miles round the island, a considerable portion of 

 the lower southern and western plains is also covered with a 

 less dense vegetation ; and as the forest is found at all eleva- 

 tions, from the level of the sea up to 6000 feet of altitude, 

 there is a great variety of temperature, and consequently of 

 vegetable products, from those which are strictly tropical to 

 those characteristic of the temperate zones. The elevated 

 plateaux of the interior are generally destitute of trees, but in 

 the sheltered river-valleys a luxuriant tropical flora is often 

 found. 



Forest Scenery. — Some of the most picturesque scenery in 

 the island, and perhaps, of its kind, hardly to be surpassed in 

 any other part of the world, is to be found on the eastern 

 coast. This being the windward side of Madagascar, receives 

 the greatest amount of rainfall : the vapour -laden south- 

 eastern trades being condensed into rain by the steep forest- 

 covered slopes of the hills, which rise line after line from the 

 coast up to the level of the interior table-land. These hills 

 are scored into deep gorges by many of the rivers, and through 

 these they find their way to the sea by a succession of rapids 

 and cataracts. Such are the valleys of the Mangoro, the 

 Mananjara, the Matitanana, and many others ; and in these 

 there are endless combinations of luxuriant and dense vegeta- 

 tion with rocks and waterfalls, presenting a thousand scenes 

 in which a landscape-painter might find an exhaustless field 

 for his pencil. 



The most frequented routes from the coast to the capital 

 necessarily pass through this girdle of woods, and four or 

 five days is usually spent in traversing the double line cf 

 forest. Here, although few trees of great size or bulk have 

 been left in the immediate neighbourhood of the rough paths 

 which form the only roads through the country, one is always 

 impressed with the luxuriance of the vegetation. There is a 

 vigorous struggle for light and air as each tree strives to 



