Tree Ferns in the Forest
Travellers’ Trees
In some places they are quite a feature of the landscape
AN UNEXPECTED PROHIBITION
After five days’ journey from Màhamànina we reached a village near Vangàindràno, another of the large Hova posts, and about three hours’ ride from the sea. But here we met with a new and unexpected experience, for we were prevented by the governor from going farther, and in fact, all our men made prisoners and detained in the fort for a couple of days, until we had agreed that we would not attempt to travel farther southwards. He alleged that he was acting under orders from the native government to allow no travelling south of the Mànanàra river. Whether this was the truth or not, we never clearly ascertained, nor any reason for such prohibition; but his whole action was in such striking contrast to the courtesy with which we were received everywhere else that it was difficult to believe he was not exceeding his instructions, certainly in the harsh way in which they were carried out. We had been repeatedly assured that there were no difficulties in travelling along the coast and that the country was perfectly tranquil, and that we could easily reach Fort Dauphine in a week. However, there was no help for it; we had to abandon our hope of seeing the congregations and people, as well as the country, to the south, and on 11th July we turned northwards, “homeward bound.” On one of the nights when we were thus stopped on our way, we saw what is not at all a common sight—namely, a very well-defined and distinct lunar rainbow. It looked pale and watery, however, quite a ghost of the rainbow produced by sunlight. During many years’ residence in Madagascar, I have only seen one on two other occasions.
On the sides of the lagoons and marshes may be found the curious pitcher-plant (Nepenthes). It is a shrub, about four feet high, and its jug-shaped pitchers, four or five inches in length, contain abundant water and numerous insects. The pitcher with its cover are most remarkable modifications of the petiole or leaf-stalk; and this plant, with a number of others, reverses the usual order of nature, and instead of forming food for animals, secures animal life, in the shape of insects, for its own nourishment. A French writer has, not inaptly, compared the pitcher of Nepenthes to the bowl of a German meerschaum pipe; and Mr Scott Elliott says: “I found the pitchers to be usually from a third to half full of the decomposing remains of insects. In almost every pitcher there were live worms, apparently living on the remains. Among the insects I found thirteen species of beetle, ten species of butterfly or moth, seven species of hemiptera (aphides, water-beetles, etc.); four species of hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants, etc.), of which one was a sand-wasp, nearly an inch long; twelve species of diptera (mosquitoes, flies, etc.), two grasshoppers, two dragonflies, and one spider.” The water contained in the pitchers apparently contains some acid or other solvent, by which the insects are slowly digested by the plant; and from the above account it will be seen what a great variety of insect life is entrapped, including even the largest and strongest insects.
A SUGAR-CANE PRESS
On one of the afternoons when we were detained near Vangàindràno, hearing a sugar-cane press at work at one end of the village, we went to look at it in operation. Like many others we saw on this coast, it consisted of a long hollowed-out trough, one end being left solid for a foot or two, thus forming a slightly convex surface, with a channel cut on either side for the expressed juice to run into the trough. Over this and across it was a rounded tree trunk, seven or eight feet long, with three short handles fixed into it; this is turned backwards and forwards over small pieces of cane placed on the convex surface, the juice being expressed by the mere weight of the round trunk. The freshly expressed juice makes a pleasant drink; after a day or two it begins to ferment, and is then much like fresh cider; but it rapidly becomes too heady and intoxicating. A good deal of tòaka (rum) is made, and is a cause of much evil among the coast tribes; but the people here appear not to understand the manufacture of sugar. Their still is as rude a contrivance as their press; an earthen pot to boil the juice, and a piece of iron piping fixed through a vessel of cold water so as to condense the steam which forms the spirit.