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CHAPTER XI. 
MEDICAL EXPERIENCES. 
The great enemy of the European in Madagascar 
is the subtle and enervating malaria , a severe 
form of intermittent fever, which prevails at all 
seasons along the coast of the island. The higher 
terraces of country are almost free from its 
ravages, or at least the worst forms of it; but in 
the lovely lowland groves, where the rarest orchids 
bloom in the richest profusion, and round about 
the region of the prolific river deltas, where the 
bright waters course along in the tropical sun¬ 
light, there lurks often unsuspected this malignant 
and deadly enemy alike of the native-born as well 
as the stranger, of the constant dweller as well as 
of him who “tarries only for a night,” filling the 
atmosphere with its pestiferous and fatal vapours, 
and scattering on all sides the seeds of weakness 
and death. The strongest succumb to its fatal 
touch, and a journey to the coast at certain sea¬ 
sons of the year is as much dreaded by the Hovas 
