They feed much on wild fruits, roots, and leaves; and yet are generally plump.

They use a wooden hoe for sowing their maere, it is a sort of V-shaped implement, made from a branch with another springing out of it, about an inch in diameter at the sharp point, and with it they claw the soil after scattering the seed; about a dozen young men were so employed in the usual small patches as we passed in the morning.
The country now exhibits the extreme of leafiness and the undulations are masses of green leaves; as far as the eye can reach with distinctness it rests on a mantle of that hue, and beyond the scene becomes dark blue.

Near at hand many gay flowers peep out.

Here and there the scarlet martagon (_Lilium chalcedonicum_), bright blue or yellow gingers; red, orange, yellow, and pure white orchids; pale lobelias, &c.; but they do not mar the general greenness.

As we ascended higher on the plateau, grasses, which have pink and reddish brown seed-vessels imparted distinct shades of their colours to the lawns, and were grateful to the eye.