26 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
or grass, sell in their markets, or send to the capital. From 
the manufacture of salt of very inferior quality, by the 
above simple process, the people of this neighbourhood 
are said to be comparatively rich. The salt formed on the 
ground was a remarkably pure carbonate of soda, which 
we used afterwards in the manufacture of soap in Tana¬ 
narive.” 
Salt is an article in considerable demand at the capital 
and other thickly-populated parts of the country; and as 
the demand has been such as to induce the natives to culti¬ 
vate the rush above referred to, for the sake of obtaining 
a supply, it seems remarkable that they have never used 
the superior kind of salt furnished by the laboratory of 
nature in this part of the country. The probability is, 
they have been deterred by considerations more or less 
connected with their superstitions. 
