We had now reached a part of the country where the _rofìa_ palm was the most prominent object in the vegetation, not on the hills, however, like the traveller’s tree, but chiefly in the valleys, where there is plenty of moisture. This palm grows very abundantly and can easily be distinguished from the other trees of its order. The trunk has a rough and rugged surface, and this reaches the height of twenty to thirty feet; but the leaves are its most striking feature; they are magnificent plumes, of enormous length, quite as long as the trunk itself. The midrib of these leaves has a very strong but light structure, some four to five inches wide at the base, and on this account it is largely used for ladders, for palanquin poles, for roofing, and indeed for anything needing lightness as well as strength. On these midribs are set a great number of grass-like pinnate fronds, from which, as already noticed, string and fibre are prepared for weaving. Great clusters of seeds (or fruits?), which are enclosed in a shiny brown skin, hang down from the top of the trunk. These are used for boxes to enclose small articles, as jewellery, etc. At one part of our journey the only road was through an extensive sheet of water, through which rose hundreds of _rofìas_, like the interior of some great temple, a most peculiar and beautiful sight, the great fronds above us quite shutting out the sunshine and making a green twilight below them. [Sidenote: A PLAGUE OF RATS] If we had been disposed to copy the titles of some popular evening entertainments, the nights preceding this Wednesday’s one might have been termed: “A Night with the Fleas,” and “A Night with the Mosquitoes,” but this was emphatically “A Night with the Rats.” We saw and heard them racing round the eaves of the house before we lay down, but as soon as the light was put out they descended and began to rattle about our pots and pans in search of food. We got up and fired a pistol among them, and this appeared for a time to scare them away; but later on their attentions became so personal that we were obliged to light a candle and keep it burning on the floor all night. After this we had comparative quiet, but before lighting the candle they had been scampering over my companion in his hammock and over myself as I lay on the floor.