12 
MADAGASCAR. 
several advantages, and, amongst others, I might 
mention a very important one from a hygeian 
point of view. It braces np the constitution 
undoubtedly for a prolonged residence in the 
hot and enervating climate, and amongst the 
feverish swamps and marshes of the east coast. 
It also gradually prepares the whole physical 
system for those new conditions of life into 
which we enter when making our home in the 
tropics. This question of acclimatisation cannot 
be overlooked; and the best and readiest means 
of securing it is of the first importance to a 
dweller in Madagascar, where success in any 
undertaking is almost entirely a matter of good 
health and spirits and carefully sustained energy; 
and therefore a voyage out by sailing-ship is not, 
as many might suppose at first sight, a pure 
waste of time. 
A brief call at the Cape is often the first intro¬ 
duction the outward-bound passengers have to 
anything like genuine unconventional colonial 
or foreign life; and as the anchor falls in the 
grand harbour, overshadowed by the Table Moun¬ 
tain, eager eyes are strained landwards to catch 
a glimpse of strange scenes, and glean something 
of the altogether fresh and striking beauty of 
these lands, where, to the untravelled English 
mind, everything in nature seems to be fashioned 
upon a vast and strangely lavish scale. 
