30 
MADAGASCAR. 
200 miles inland, the island is very sparsely 
peopled. Much of the surface is taken up by 
extensive forests; and there are beautiful dis¬ 
tricts and tracts of woodland through which the 
traveller passes for days without meeting a per¬ 
son or seeing a single human habitation. 
The continuous mountain-ridges, rising gradu¬ 
ally in a regular series of terraces from the coast 
to the central province of Imevina, which contains 
the capital, form the principal and most striking 
physical features of Madagascar, and impart to 
the scenery a stern and massive grandeur, that 
never fails to impress the spectator with a feeling 
of awe and admiration, which becomes intensified 
as he traverses the sombre and almost silent 
forests that fill up the precipitous ravines, and 
even clothe for a considerable distance the slopes 
of the more elevated passes. Huge masses of 
gneiss rise up here and there, sometimes from the 
greensward, and often from the hillsides, tower¬ 
ing high above the surrounding objects, and 
covered with moss, or hoary with the passage of 
time, and curiously suggestive often of the tot¬ 
tering arches and buttresses of some old-world 
cathedral or gigantic castle which has been over¬ 
whelmed by some sudden and tremendous catas¬ 
trophe. The paths that do duty for roads, even 
to the capital, are rough and always sadly out of 
repair, and in places are mere inclines of greasy 
