CHAP. V. 
VARIETIES OF NATIVE MEDICINE. 
141 
taken as their own portraits; but I sometimes found it dif¬ 
ficult to prevent the crowd, which invariably gathered round, 
from standing before the camera, either with a desire to look 
or to be included in the picture. From the natural objects in 
the neighbourhood, I obtained views of some curious species 
of pandanus surrounding a cattle-fold not far from my dwell¬ 
ing. The pandanus exhibits a form of growth peculiar to the 
vegetation of the sea-shore in many tropical regions. It 
thrives well in pure sand near the water’s edge. It is also an 
exceedingly useful tree. The trunk is durable, and is em¬ 
ployed in the structure and fitting of native canoes. The 
leaves, in the South Sea Islands, make excellent thatch, and 
the fruit or nuts are baked, and the kernels eaten. In Mada¬ 
gascar the leaves are used chiefly for covering packages to 
exclude rain during transit from the coast to the interior. It 
is extensively cultivated in Mauritius, and its leaves used for 
making bags ; large quantities of which are brought from the 
Sechelle Islands, and all the sugar produced in Mauritius is 
exported in bags made from the leaves of this singularly 
growing but useful tree. Sometimes, while taking a view, I 
had applications of another kind. On the first morning when 
I went out, as soon as I had fixed the camera before the 
house which I wished to take, the mistress of the premises 
came and asked me to look at a slave who had been suffering 
some days with toothache. I fetched an instrument and im¬ 
mediately extracted the tooth. Many of the natives appeared 
to suffer from toothache; and in more than one instance 
I was required to remove two teeth at the same time from 
one individual. 
From all that I learned in conversing with the natives and 
with foreigners long resident in the island, it would appear 
that Madagascar is rich in medicinal plants and gums; and 
that the natives are, to a certain extent, acquainted with the 
medicinal properties of many of the productions of their 
