REEDS AND RUSHES. 85 



are part of the furniture of every Malagasy house ; these 

 cover the floor, and often line the walls ; and on the entrance 

 of a visitor, a clean one is always taken from the rolled-up 

 mats overhead and spread for him to sit down upon. This 

 straw is also platted into very neat hats and caps, which 

 vary in shape and pattern in different parts of the country, 

 and into a great variety of beautiful and durable bas- 

 kets. In the Betsileo province the clothing of the lower 

 classes consists solely of a straw mat; and on the south- 

 eastern coast, similar mats, but made of a fine rush, are sewn 

 into a kind of sack, and thus worn by the coast tribes. 

 Small squares of mat are also used in these regions instead 

 of plates and dishes ; and a variety of brushes are also made 

 from grass stalks. Several kinds of grass are used in many 

 parts of the country for thatching the native houses, the 

 long and tough stalks forming an excellent covering. Still 

 another purpose is served by grass in Madagascar. Owing 

 to the scarcity of wood in the central provinces, grass forms 

 the only fuel of the majority of the people. During the rainy 

 season it grows long and rank from the abundant moisture, 

 and then gets brown and dry during the six rainless months 

 of the cold weather. It is the work of the old slave-women 

 to go out and collect bundles of this fuel ; and what is left 

 is generally set fire to towards the approach of the rainy 

 season, so that during the months of August, September, 

 and October the sky is lighted up at night with the glare 

 of burning grass in all directions, and visible at immense 

 distances all over the central provinces. 



Meeds and Rushes.- — Hardly less important than the grasses 

 are the reeds and rushes which grow in the marshes of Mada- 

 gascar. Of these the zozdro, a species of papyrus, is the most 

 prominent and beautiful. This plant has a firm triangular 

 stem, with smooth shining skin and a pithy interior. It is 

 about an inch and a quarter each way, and grows to a height 

 of five or six feet in Imerina, with a head of long filaments 

 forming the flower. In the warmer parts of the country, es- 

 pecially in the Antsihanaka province, the zozoro grows to more 

 than double the height and size found in the colder regions, 

 and covers thousands of square acres of marshy land, growing 



