542 
ISLAND OF MADAGASCAR. 
some the most suitable place for a colony ; while others pre- 
fer the country adjoining St. Augustine Bay. On the coast, 
about Fort Dauphin, it is rendered unhealthy by the great 
quantity of sea weed driven upon it by certain currents, 
which being corrupted by an almost vertical sun in summer, 
sends forth contagious effluvia. 
The island is said to contain two hundred millions of 
acres of arable ground, celebrated for its fertility, and the 
variety of its productions. The rivers are plentifully stocked 
with fish ; the mountains are very numerous, some of them 
rise to the height of 1800 fathoms above the level of the 
sea, are covered with wood, and many are inaccessible ; but 
the vallies are fertile, and covered with cattle. 
Madagascar produces six different sorts of rice, and no 
fewer than ten different kinds of yams ; likewise the banana, 
which is considered and called by the natives, the fig tree of 
Adam. Near Foul Point, on the east coast, are found po- 
tatoes, four kinds of turnips, beans, peas, and poultry. 
There are mines of iron and steel, and it is reported by some 
that there are also mines of gold, silver, and copper. It is 
not improbable that the iron which I saw at the city of 
Lattakoo, comes from Madagascar; for it is nearly opposite 
the south end of it, about three or four hundred miles 
from the coast, to which it may be brought, and bar- 
tered from nation to nation till it reaches the country of the 
Bootchuanas. At Antigonal bay, four different kinds of 
silk worms were found by Abbe Rochon when he visited it; 
likewise amber, wax, honey, and fine wool. Flax, indigo, 
sugar, pepper, and tobacco, it is thought, would grow w^ell 
there. The northern is considered the most fertile part ; in 
a good season the fields will yield an hundred fold. 
This island, says Abbe Rochon, affords a large field for 
the botanist; so much so that one could scarcely study, in the 
course of a long life, the natural history of its vegetation. 
There are snakes on the island, but they are not very 
dangerous. Crocodiles abound in the rivers, whose appear- 
ance strikes terror into the most intrepid of the inhabitants, 
and great caution is necessary in walking near the rivers. 
They have been seen to drag away and devour even a bullock. 
The contiguity of Madagascar to the coast of Africa 
makes it natural to ascribe its population to that vast conti- 
nent,- but the different races of inhabitants are now so much 
confounded, as to render it impossible to enumerate them. 
The race of the real negro is easily distinguished there. 
Some white inhabitants pretend to be descended from 
