440 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. XVI. 
repeatedly raised itself up on its hind legs, and clapped its 
hands together, and chattered loud in a most extraordinary 
manner, occasioning great uneasiness among our crew of 
Malagasy sailors, who declared it was an omen of evil to the 
ship, and that some fearful calamity might be expected. I 
had felt so much interest in the sociable and apparently gentle 
animal on board our ship, that I should have been glad to 
have seen some of its species in their own forest homes; but 
though numbers were evidently near, none of them came 
within sight. 
Soon after crossing the first river in the forest, I saw some 
beautiful lycopodiums growing near the margin of the stream; 
and immediately left my palanquin to examine them and other 
plants. 
This part of my journey was perfect enjoyment. The 
slipperiness of the clayey path, or of the smooth, round, inter¬ 
laced roots of the gigantic trees, and the wet and tangled 
brushwood, with occasional piles or fragments of rock, were 
scarcely felt to be impediments, under the influence of the 
pleasure produced by the frequent appearance of a new plant 
or flower of beauty or rarity. But by nine o’clock it began 
to rain ; and considering that two of my fellow-travellers 
were suffering from fever, and that we had still the most 
dangerous districts to pass, I was obliged, not perhaps without 
a slight feeling of disappointment, to relinquish my pleasant 
pursuit, and seek the shelter of the palanquin. 
The rain increased, and the path became so slippery that I 
more than once requested the men to let me get down and 
walk, even in the rain. But they said my weight was small, 
and I could never proceed on foot. Light as the weight was, 
it required the whole eight bearers great part of the way, not 
so much to sustain the load as to keep the palanquin upright, 
and to pilot it up and down the steep and sometimes intricate 
paths. A young chief kept before the palanquin great part 
