HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
75 
The next province is the eleventh, Androy , separated hy 
the river Mahafaly from Anosy. Of this and the adjoin¬ 
ing provinces, (twenty-first and twenty-second,) Mahafaly 
and Fiarenana, there is, perhaps, little to be said. Scarcely 
any advancement has been made in the civilization of their 
inhabitants, excepting in this one important circumstance, 
that the chiefs of the two latter provinces, in voluntarily sub¬ 
mitting to Radama, agreed to his propositions on the 
subject of the suppression of the slave-trade in Mada¬ 
gascar. The country is woody, and the population small. 
Wild cattle abound. Salt and nitre are found in Maha¬ 
faly and Fiarenana. Tolia Bay and St. Augustine Bay 
are situated in the province of Fiarenana; it is to this 
part of the country that Drury’s notice of Madagascar 
principally refers; and there also the Winterton was lost 
in August 1792.* The ship was wrecked in the district 
of the bay of St. Augustine, about fifteen or twenty miles 
from Tolia. The soil in the neighbourhood of Tolia is 
sandy and unproductive, but improving towards the bay of 
St. Augustine. 
Before proceeding to the next great division of the 
western coast, it may be proper to remark, that there are 
two inland provinces lying between Mahafaly and Fiare¬ 
nana on the west, and Anosy on the east:—the twelfth, called 
Tsienimbalala ; and the thirteenth, Ibara ; the former to the 
south, bordering on Androy; the latter to the north, 
joining the Betsileo country. Of these, however, little 
more can be said than respecting the western provinces, 
to which they are contiguous. They have never been 
carefully explored, either by natives or foreigners. It is 
known that they are but thinly peopled. The country is 
* Loss of the Winterton pp. 13—18. 
