298 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
The canals are cut around the bottom of the hills adjoin¬ 
ing the fields of rice, the proprietors of which take the 
quantity of water required along the course of the canal, 
which, in some places, extends for several miles. Other 
canals are led, when necessary, through the centre of the 
plains, and from these also the adjoining planters draw 
their water on both sides. 
Every field is a perfect level, it being necessary at times 
to cover it with water several inches deep. There are 
some plains containing a square mile of rice-ground, the 
level of which probably does not vary two feet throughout 
its whole extent. In the more hilly parts of the country, 
small streams are intercepted as near as possible to the 
tops of the hills, on the sides of which the rice-grounds 
are formed in long narrow terraces, which are supplied 
with water from the stream already mentioned. These 
terraces vary in size and number, being frequently not 
more than three or four feet wide, and often rising one 
above another on the sides of the hill, to the amount of 
twenty or thirty in number. When covered with water 
preparatory to sowing or planting, they present a remark¬ 
ably singular appearance, resembling an immense aqueous 
causeway, or flight of steps, from the level ground towards 
the tops of the hills. 
The cultivation of rice in the interior of the island is 
not unfrequently attended with considerable disappoint¬ 
ment. The failure may arise from various causes, such 
as too much or too little water, from the depredations of 
the locusts, or more frequently a small insect, which eats 
into the stalk, and destroys it so completely as to leave 
whole fields to present a withered or blighted appearance. 
Sometimes also a shower of hail passing over a field of 
rice nearly ready to be cut down, destroys it entirely; and 
