44-4- 
VIS1TS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. XVI. 
As we passed along, we saw a woman seated on a piece of 
wood which jutted out into the water, eating a banana, and 
drinking of the stream; the chief who was with me in 
the boat warned her away, lest she should be seized by 
a crocodile, of which, he said, there were numbers in the 
river. A few yards further on, a monster, shining and brown 
like the bank of mud on which he was lying, appeared not 
many yards from our canoe. It was about seven feet long, 
and so still, that I thought it was dead, and, pointing to it, 
the chief, expecting that I wished to approach, called out 
with a most startling earnestness, “ Away ! away! It is not 
dead, nor even asleep.” Looking more intently, I saw that its 
tail did not lie straight out, but was rather curved; clearly 
showing it to be alive. We were at the- time rowing along 
the edge of a large plantation of sugar-cane ; and one of the 
labourers belonging to the plantation, who was in the canoe, 
stated that crocodiles there were numerous and savage; that 
two or three of the slaves belonging to the plantation were 
almost every year carried off by these reptiles. 
While waiting at Tamatave, I had a good opportunity 
for using my cameras; and many of the chiefs and others 
were gratified by having their likenesses taken. At the same 
time I also secured a view of my own residence, together with 
the Street in Tamatave of which it formed a part, as well as 
of a number of the chiefs and others in their ordinary dress, 
sitting or standing under the verandahs, as they often ap¬ 
peared during the after part of the day.* I also printed 
* It is perhaps but just in connection with this subject to state that my 
camera—which was large, capable of taking a picture sixteen inches square— 
and the other apparatus worked well the whole time, and seemed scarcely affected 
either by the intense and dry heat of the capital or the saturating moisture 
after the heavy rains on the coast. The camera was of mahogany, and light, and 
stood much better than cameras of walnut, which I had taken out on my former 
visits. The apparatus was all made by Messrs. Murray and Heath, of Piccadilly. 
