306 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CIIAP. XI. 
in which it is cooked until it is brown, then pouring in fresh 
water, boil it into a sort of coffee, which all classes are accus¬ 
tomed to drink after their meals. Sometimes in addition 
to other presents brought me by the people was a small 
quantity of honey, generally clear and good. It was some 
satisfaction to me to see that, heavy as the roads were, my 
bearers did not become thinner, or look the worse for their 
journey. 
In the afternoon we again resumed our journey, crossing 
the water of the same or different rivers five times, and tra¬ 
velling for a considerable distance along the steep bank of the 
Farimbongy, a broad and rapid stream. Later in the after¬ 
noon we reached Mahela, where we halted for the night, 
having travelled nearly twenty miles over roads that in 
England would have been deemed impassable. Wherever 
the road was at all level, the path was through deep clayey 
mud. The steep ascents and descents, of a hundred or three 
hundred feet in extent, were sometimes traversed by a slanting 
path along a narrow deep hollow, worn by the water. At 
other times the path lay along a narrow way, full of ridges and 
holes, pent up between steep banks from ten to twenty feet 
high, of red or pinkish clay *, containing fragments of quartz, 
rocks of which also sometimes overhang the path, which it¬ 
self was occasionally so narrow that I could touch both sides 
at once. 
When our way led through forest or wood, the large, smooth, 
slippery roots of the trees forming a sort of network along 
the path, and having their interstices filled with water, ren¬ 
dered travelling still more difficult; and while I felt grateful 
that we had passed without accident, I could not but admire 
the surefootedness and care evinced by the bearers. Although 
where it was practicable I always walked, or rather scrambled 
* The country answers to its name, Betanimena, which signifies much red 
earth. 
