ala




 
  Citations : ala

1838Ellis William : History of Madagascar
page I.315
Forests of varied extent abound in different parts of the country, and an immense belt of forest, of two or three days' journey in width, surrounds the interior of the island. These forest yield abundance of timber, of different colour and texture, and of various degrees of hardness and durability.
page I.315
Timber is exceedingly dear at the capital, being brought from the extensive forest of Angavo, which stretches to a great distance on the north and south of Antananarivo, from which it is about forty miles distant. Multitude of the natives are constantly employed in cutting wood in the forest for the government, and others in dragging it to the capital.
page I.316
To fell the timber in the forest, for the use of the sovereign, is a service devolving upon the woodmen of government. This work employs about seven hundred men, who are, consequently, called "The seven hundred."

1915Sibree James : A Naturalist in Madagascar
page 277
In some places the woods were very dense and there was a green twilight as we passed along the narrow path amongst the crowd of tall trunks. We were struck by the intense silence of the forest; there was no sound of animal life, and no voice of bird, or beast, or insect broke the oppresive stillness... Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that these comparatively silent woods are destitute of animal life, and the stillness is largely attributable to the peculiar character of the Madagascar fauna.
page 291
Part of our fifth and the whole of our sixth and last day's land journey was taken at no great distance from the Ikopa river; and I began to wonder where the western belt-forest was; for, as we have seen, we had passed through no such masses of dense forest as must be crossed anywhere on the eastern side of the island when one comes up to the interior of Madagascar.
page 60
Here it may be noted that we had now entered some way into the lower and wider of the two belts of dense forest which extend for several hundred miles along the eastern side of Madagascar, and cover the mountains which form the great ramparts of the highland of the interior. There is a continuous forest from nearly the north of the island to almost the southern extremity; its greatest width is about fifty miles, north of Antongil Bay; but to the south of the Antsihanaka province it divides into two. Of these two belts, the upper one, which clothes the edge of the highland, is the narrowest, being not much above ten or twelve miles across, but the lower belt is from twice to three times that breadth.