CHAPTER XII

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Mr. Laborde.--Prince Rakoto.--Anecdote of his Life.--The Sambas-Sambas.--Mary.--Review on the Field of Mars.--The Nobility in Madagascar.--The Secret Treaty.--The English Missionary Society and Mr. Lambert.

Our host, Mr. Laborde, favored us with the following account of his life.

He was born in France, and is the son of a well-to-do saddler. In his youth he served for several years as a cavalry soldier in the French army, but, being always prompted by a desire to see something of the world, he gave up the service after his father’s death, found a substitute, and embarked for the East Indies. In Bombay he established several workshops, repaired steam-engines, manufactured weapons, set up a saddlery, and did very good business; but his restless spirit would not let him remain long in one place, so he gave up his workshops to a friend, and in the year 1831 shipped himself off to the Indian Archipelago. The ship, driven out of its course by a storm, was wrecked on the coast of Madagascar. Mr. Laborde not only lost all he possessed, but his liberty into the bargain; for, as is well known, all shipwrecked men are made slaves of in this hospitable island. Mr. Laborde was taken, with a few of his companions in misfortune, to Tananariva to be sold.

Fortunately, tidings of his skill in manufacturing weapons and other articles reached the queen’s ears. She sent for him to court, and promised him his freedom if he would serve her faithfully for five years. Mr. Laborde did this. He established a workshop, and furnished the queen with all kinds of weapons, even to little cannons, and also with powder and other articles. In spite of her general hatred toward Europeans, he gained the queen’s confidence, and she soon got to value him so highly that she took his advice in several important affairs, and he succeeded, not unfrequently, in dissuading her from pronouncing sentences of death.

But it is not only in the queen’s estimation that Mr. Laborde stands high. The people and the nobility also set great store by him; for his many good qualities have made him popular every where, and all who need counsel or help come to him, and never come in vain. He is physician, confidential friend, and helper to them all.

The five years Mr. Laborde was to pass in the queen’s service extended to ten. His patroness gave him house and home, lands and slaves; and as he is married to a native woman, and has a son by this marriage, he will probably remain here to the end of his life, though he has long been free and independent, and may leave the island whenever he chooses to do so.

Besides his manufactories for arms and powder, this industrious man has also established works for glass-blowing, indigo-dyeing, soap and tallow boiling, and a distillery for rum. He wished also to stock the island with European fruits and vegetables, and most of those he planted flourished wonderfully, but his example remained unfollowed. The natives preferred to live on in their pristine indolence, and to continue eating nothing but rice, with the addition of a piece of beef now and then.

If Mr. Laborde, however, did not succeed in producing all the results he expected from his undertakings, they have at least done good service in showing the capability of this beautiful land for cultivation.

It was toward four o’clock in the afternoon when we arrived in Mr. Laborde’s house.

Our friendly host immediately introduced two Europeans to us, the only ones then staying at Tananariva. The two gentlemen were clergymen; one of them had been living for two years, the other for seven months, in Mr. Laborde’s house. It was not the time to appear as missionaries, and they concealed the fact of their belonging to a mission very carefully, the prince and the Europeans being the only persons admitted into the secret. One passes as a physician, the other as tutor to Mr. Laborde’s son, who had come back two years since from Paris, where he had been sent by his father to be educated.

We were soon assembled at a good dinner round our host’s table. Every thing was arranged in European style, with the exception that the dishes and plates were all of massive silver, and silver goblets supplied the place of drinking-glasses. I observed jokingly to Mr. Laborde that I had never met with such luxury at any table, and that Tananariva was the last place in the world where I should have expected to find it. He replied that similar luxury prevailed in all the houses of the rich, but that there were certainly not many houses of this description. He said he had himself introduced the fashion, but not from ostentation, but, on the contrary, on economical grounds. He found that china-ware had continually to be replaced, as the slaves were perfect adepts in the art of breaking any given number of articles in the shortest possible time, so that the use of china became very expensive.

Before we had nearly concluded our pleasant meal, while Champagne was being handed round, and the toasts were beginning, a slave came running up in hot haste to announce the approach of Prince Rakoto. We rose hastily from table, but had little time to go and meet the prince, for, in his impatience to see Mr. Lambert, he had followed close at the slave’s heels. The two men held each other in a long embrace, but for some time neither of them could find a word to express his joy. It was easy to see that a deep and true friendship existed between them, and we who stood round could not view the scene without feelings of pleasurable emotion.

Prince Rakoto, or, to call him by his full name, Rako-dond-Radama, is a young man twenty-seven years of age. Contrary to my expectation, his appearance was far from disagreeable. He is short and slim in stature, and his face does not betray a likeness, in form or color, to any of the four races who inhabit Madagascar. His features have quite the type of the Moldavian Greeks. His black hair is curly, but not woolly; he has dark eyes, full of life and fire; a well-shaped mouth, and handsome teeth. His features wear an expression of such childlike goodness that one feels drawn toward him from the first moment of seeing him. He often goes about in European costume.

The prince is honored and beloved alike by high and low; and I was assured by Mr. Laborde that he fully deserved all this affection and honor. The son is, in fact, as kind-hearted as the mother is cruel; he is just as averse to the shedding of blood as his mother is addicted to it, and his chief efforts are directed toward mitigating the severe punishments the queen is continually inflicting, and obtaining a reversal of the sentences of death which she is always too ready to pronounce upon her subjects.

He is always ready to listen to the unfortunate, and to help them; and has strictly forbidden his slaves to turn any applicant away on the score that he is sleeping or engaged at his meals. Well aware of this, people often come in the middle of the night and wake the prince from his sleep, with petitions for their relations who are to be executed early next morning. If he can not obtain a pardon from his mother, he manages to pass as if by accident along the road by which the poor culprits are led, bound with cords, to meet their fate. Then he cuts their bonds asunder, and either tells them to flee, or to go quietly home, according as their offenses have been grave or venial. When the queen is informed of what her son has done, she never makes any remark, but only tries to keep the next sentences she pronounces as secret as possible, and to hasten their execution. Condemnation and punishment thus often succeed each other so rapidly, that if the prince is absent from the town when sentence is passed, the application to him for assistance is almost sure to come too late.

It is strange, considering how radically different their dispositions are, that mother and son should love each other so tenderly. The prince is devoted to the queen with the utmost affection; he tries to excuse her deeds of severity by every conceivable argument, and it is a bitter reflection to him that she can be neither loved nor respected by the nation.

The prince’s character is the more remarkable, inasmuch as he has had his mother’s bad example before his eyes from his earliest youth, and can not escape from her influence; moreover, not the slightest care has been taken of his education. In most similar cases, the son would certainly have imbibed the prejudices and acquired the vices of the mother.

No one has attempted to teach him any thing, with the exception of a few words of the English language; what he knows, and what he is, he owes entirely to himself. What might this prince not have been had a judicious education opened his mind and developed his talents? I had frequent opportunities of seeing and observing him, for a day seldom passed without his paying Mr. Lambert a visit. I found no fault in him except a certain want of independence and a distrust of his own abilities; and the only thing I fear, should the government one day fall into his hands, is, that he will not come forward with sufficient energy, and may fail in thoroughly carrying out his good intentions.

A few of the actions of this man will sufficiently prove the nobility of his mind.

It frequently happens that the queen orders hundreds of her subjects to perform the heaviest labor for months together for some favored personage--such work, for instance, as hewing timber for building, and then dragging it thirty miles along the road; hewing stone, and kindred occupations; for all which the poor people get not the slightest reward of any kind. When the prince hears of a case of this kind, he manages to pass by the neighborhood where the people are at work, meets them as if by chance, and asks for whom they are laboring thus. On receiving their reply, he farther inquires if they are properly fed, for wages are of course out of the question. Then it generally turns out that they not only have no food provided for them, but frequently have consumed all the provisions they have brought with them, and are trying to satisfy their hunger with herbs and roots. The prince then has one or two oxen killed, according to the number of the laborers, and this meat, with a good supply of rice, is by his command distributed among them. If the owner should come forward in surprise at this order, and attempt to remonstrate, the prince sends him away with this assurance: “Whoever works for you has a just claim to be supported by you; and if you will not make the arrangement yourself, your steward must.”

A few years ago, a ship was wrecked on the coast of Madagascar, and the majority of the crew perished. Five sailors who had escaped from the wreck were sent, according to the usual custom, to the capital, to be sold there as slaves. The prince met them during an excursion he was making, about a day’s journey from Tananariva, and noticing that one of the sailors had no shoes, and was limping painfully after the rest, he drew off his own and gave them to him. He also took care that the poor men were well fed. Mr. Laborde bought these five sailors, clothed them, gave them money and letters of recommendation, and helped them to get back to their own country. The prince is seldom in a position to carry out his benevolent designs, for he has no money, or, at any rate, very little; his whole wealth consisting in slaves, rice-fields, and oxen given to him by his mother.

Another time the prince saw a European being led as a prisoner to the capital by several natives. The poor wretch was being urged on like a brute beast by his guards with blows and pushes; he was so exhausted and weak from the long journey and the bad roads that he could drag himself no farther. The prince reproved the guards for their cruelty, himself alighted from his tacon, or sedan-chair, and told the captive to take his place.

The prince, moreover, found an opportunity of showing his generosity toward one of our bearers. True to the habits of his country, this poor wretch had stolen an ox in the vicinity of the capital, driven it to one of the markets, and tried to dispose of it; but he was caught in the fact, and brought to the capital. In cases of this kind, justice in Madagascar is very quick in taking its course; on the same day sentence of death was passed upon him, and toward evening he was to be executed in the manner of the country, with the lance or gagaya. Mr. Laborde heard of this, and sent in all directions in search of the prince to obtain his mediation. Luckily, the prince was found in time, scarcely half an hour before the execution was to have taken place. He proceeded at once to the prison, opened the door for the captive, and recommended him to flee to his own home as fast as he could.

Many similar traits were told me of the prince, and seldom, it is said, do many days elapse without his saving lives or performing some generous

## action. He often gives away his last dollar, distributes all his stores

of rice and other provisions, and is doubly glad when he can help some unfortunate being without letting the recipient of his bounty know who is his benefactor.

The following words, which I heard from his own mouth, speak more eloquently than my weak pen could do the praises of this really noble man. He declared it to be a matter of indifference to him whether the French or the English, or any other nation, took possession of the island, if only the people were properly governed. For himself, he wished neither for the throne nor for the regal title, and would at any time be ready to give a written abdication of his claims, and retire and live as a private man, if he could by such a course insure the prosperity of the people.

I must confess that this declaration moved me deeply, and inspired me with a high respect for this prince--such respect as I feel for very few human beings. To my mind, a man of such sentiments is greater than the most prominent among the ambitious and egotistical monarchs of Europe.

May 31. This morning the queen sent one of the grandees of the empire to inquire after our health, and to invite us to take the _sambas-sambas_ next day in the house of the Lady Rasoaray.

On this occasion she sent Mr. Lambert a present as a mark of her favor. The gift consisted of a magnificent fatted ox, of proportions I had rarely seen equaled even in Europe, besides some very fine poultry and a basket of eggs. The presents of the queen never consist of any other articles, and are generally confined to poultry and eggs; oxen are only added when she wishes to confer on the recipient a mark of peculiar distinction.

The sambas-sambas is a dish made of fine strips of beef broiled in fat, and of rice. It is customary, in the first month of the new year, to regale friends and relations who come to visit you with this dish. Every one takes a pinch of it, rises from his seat, turns to the right and to the left, and says, “May the queen live a thousand years.” After this he may eat as much as he likes of the preparation, or may leave it untouched, as he pleases. This ceremony is somewhat equivalent to wishing a happy new-year among us.

As we happened to arrive in the first month of the new year, and the queen wished to show Mr. Lambert all kinds of attention, she invited him to this feast, and my humble self and the other Europeans were included in the honor as friends of Mr. Lambert.

All the banquets to which friends are invited are not held in the royal palace, but at the house of the Lady Rasoaray, who is of very high birth, and whose spacious, richly-furnished dwelling is well adapted for such purposes. To eat in the palace of the queen, or, still more, in her company, would be considered too great an honor for a stranger; so far the condescension of this haughty, self-opinioned potentate extendeth not.

I made use of this day to visit the town, of which, however, I can say nothing more than that it is very bustling, and extends over a large space of ground, especially if the suburbs be taken as part of it. It is said, with its immediate environs, to contain 50,000 houses, or “roofs,” as they are called here, and 100,000 inhabitants. This estimate is probably much exaggerated; but certainly the proportion of dwellings is unusually great, from the simple reason that the houses themselves are

## particularly small, consisting of no more than one room, or at most but

two. If the family is large, two or three additional little houses are built up around the original dwelling; all who have any pretensions to wealth have their kitchen under a separate roof; and, of course, the slaves are also quartered in various small houses. Still, I do not think Tananariva can contain many more than 15,000, or, at the most, 20,000 houses.

Mr. Laborde, for instance, is the owner of nine small dwellings, tenanted by seven free men and thirty slaves; here, then, the proportion of inhabitants to houses would be as four to one. But Mr. Laborde is a European, and does not live with his people in such a crowded manner as the natives affect--with them six, or certainly at least five, inhabitants may be reckoned to every roof.

June 1. At two o’clock in the afternoon we betook ourselves to the house of the Lady Rasoaray, and were conducted to a large hall, the walls papered in European fashion, and the floor covered with handsome mats. In the middle of the room stood a table, elegantly spread, in a style of which no prince in Europe need have been ashamed. The other arrangements in the room were simple, but tasteful. Many an English lady would have been exceedingly scandalized by the fact that in the room in which we were to dine stood two beds--two very handsome beds, with heavy curtains of rich silk. As I am, however, not an Englishwoman, but only a simple German, I took no notice of the circumstance, and the presence of the two beds did not prevent me from eating my share of beef and rice in all peace and quietness of spirit. These two dishes are the only ones admitted at the sambas-sambas, and water is the only beverage allowed on these occasions.

I particularly admired two silver vases, with carving on them in relief, which stood on the table; and my wonder rose considerably when I was informed that they had been executed by native artificers. They would certainly have met with high approval even in Europe. Like the Chinese, the natives are gifted in a high degree with the faculty of imitation, but they lack originality.

Among the high personages invited with ourselves to the feast were many who spoke either French or English, English being the more common. The knowledge of this language dates from the time of King Radama, in whose reign English missionaries came to Madagascar, and a certain number of young men were sent to the Mauritius or to England for their education.

The ceremony of the sambas-sambas was very soon ended, and we returned home early; in the evening we were surprised by a visit from Prince Rakoto. He brought with him the mother of his little five-year-old son, to introduce her to me. As I have already mentioned, the prince can not, according to the laws that prevail here, marry this woman, because she is a slave, and her son has, therefore, not the smallest claim to his father’s rank; nevertheless, they are both honored with the princely title. It may certainly be said that in this country the laws are of little importance in so far as they affect the ruler; they depend solely and entirely upon the will of the reigning sovereign; and as soon as Prince Rakoto comes to the throne, he can alter them at his pleasure, and make his former slave his queen and her son heir-apparent.

I have spoken of the character of this woman. As regards her beauty, if it is to be discovered, it must certainly not be judged of by European eyes, or the beholder should have lived long enough among the natives to have become accustomed to their ugly features, and to consider the least hideous among them as handsome.

June 2. To-day we were present at a great review on the Field of Mars, a beautiful meadow spreading out at the foot of the hill in front of the town. It is asserted that from ten to twelve thousand soldiers are always assembled at Tananariva; but, like the estimate of the houses, this number must probably be reduced about one half. The military who appeared on this occasion did not certainly exceed 4500 or 5000 men. The soldiers formed a great double square, with the officers and band in the centre.

A review of this kind is held every fortnight--namely, on the third day of every second week; its object is to ascertain that the soldiers who should be on duty are present; that they are in health, and their weapons and clothes in proper condition. Their names are called over, and if in a company only a few are missing, the captain merely receives a reprimand; but if the list of absentees is a long one, the commanding officer is punished on the spot with a dozen blows or more. The latter incident is reported to be of frequent occurrence; for among such a large number of soldiers, there are many whose homes are several days’ journey from the capital, so that they can hardly find time, between one review and another, to go thither, cultivate their fields, provide themselves with food, and return punctually.

No military manœuvres were undertaken, and I was told that war is carried on entirely without system, as among the wildest tribes. Especially when a company thinks itself lost, all subordination ceases, and the men take to flight on every side.

Horrible is the fate of the sick and wounded soldiers, not only during a flight, when, of course, no one cares about them, but even during ordinary marches. Their comrades are bound to take care of them, and to carry and feed them; but how can people be expected to do this who are themselves in want of every thing, and often so much weakened by hunger and toil of every kind that they can scarcely drag themselves along and carry their weapons? It frequently happens that efforts are made by the soldiers to rid themselves of these poor wretches. They are not killed outright, which would be rather a benefit to them, under the circumstances; but their comrades drag them along the ground, without giving them any food, or even a refreshing draught from the nearest spring. When they have ceased to give any sign of life, they are left by the wayside, no one caring to ascertain whether they are dead or not.

On these marches a fearful number of lives are sacrificed. In the last war, for instance, which the queen waged against the Seklaves two years ago, ten thousand men were sent into the field. More than half died on the march for want of food; many deserted; and when the army reached the scene of action, its force is said to have scarcely exceeded three thousand men.

The prisoners are much better off, for care is taken of them, as a profit is derived from their sale; and even as slaves they are not in nearly so unhappy a condition as the soldiers and peasants. Their owners feed, clothe, and lodge them; nor are they overworked; for, by transgressing in this respect, the owner runs the risk of losing his bondman, for his slave runs away; and fugitive slaves are seldom captured, there being no police or similar institution in the country. The master certainly has the power of beating his slave to death; the government will not interfere with him; but his own interest will deter him from any extreme measures. Many slaves pay their owners a small yearly tax in money, and live like free men; others even keep slaves themselves, who work for their master-bondmen.

After the review, the officers and music marched past our house to welcome Mr. Lambert.

The officers were mostly clothed, like their brethren at Tamatavé, in European garb, and looked ridiculous and comical enough. One wore a dress-coat, the tails of which reached almost to his heels; another had a coat of flowered chintz; a third, a faded red jacket, which had once done duty as part of a marine’s uniform. Their hats were just as diverse in character. There were straw hats and felt hats, of all sizes and shapes, caps and head-coverings of fearful and wonderful forms. The generals wore the regulation cocked hat of Europe, and were mounted.

The military grades are modeled quite on the European plan; there are thirteen gradations from the private soldier up to the field-marshal.

I succeeded also in finding European titles in Madagascar; there were crowds of barons, counts, and princes, as at the most aristocratic European courts.

The whole population of Madagascar is divided into eleven castes. The eleventh caste consists of the regal personage; the tenth of the descendants of the royal family. In this caste alone brothers and sisters may intermarry, probably in order to prevent there being too many scions of the blood royal. The six following castes, from the ninth to the fourth inclusive, comprise the nobles of higher and lower rank; the people belong to the third caste, the “white” slaves to the second--a class including all who were once free, and have been sold as prisoners of war or as a punishment for crimes; and the first, or lowest caste, consists of the “black” slaves, namely, those who have been born in that condition of life.

A noble may take a wife not only out of his own caste, but out of the two immediately below him, but never from a higher one. On no account may he marry a slave-woman; and the law does not even allow any other kind of connection between a noble and a slave. In this respect, by the way, Madagascar might serve as a model to those countries governed by white men where slavery exists; for the morality of the entire community would be greatly benefited if this custom were observed. This law was in former times very stringently enforced, and on the discovery of a connection of the kind alluded to the noble was sold as a slave, and the slave-woman beheaded. If the woman in the case was a noble and the man a slave, both were beheaded. In these latter days, however, this strictness has been much relaxed. Indeed, in the universally low state of morality prevailing here at the present time, the greater number of the nobles and officials would have to lose their heads or their freedom; and what would then become of the court? Some amount of good is, however, still effected by the law; for when such an affair between a nobleman and his slave is suspected, he is compelled to set her free to escape punishment.

As polygamy has been introduced here, every man may have as many wives as he pleases; but among the nobles only a certain number of these women have a claim to the actual title of wife, and the first wife always keeps precedence over those taken subsequently. She alone lives in her husband’s house, and great respect is shown to her; her children, too, have privileges beyond those of the other wives. The other children, like the subsequent wives, live in little separate houses. The king may take twelve lawful wives, but they must be all members of the highest families. The ruling queen and her sisters and daughters have the right of sending away their husbands and taking new ones as often as they choose so to do.

Our breakfast was just over, and I had retired to my room, when Mr. Lambert came to announce that the queen had summoned us to an introduction or audience. This honor is generally accorded to strangers eight or ten days after their arrival; but her majesty seemed desirous of showing distinction to Mr. Lambert above all Europeans who had ever visited her court, and so, not later than the fourth day, we had the happiness of appearing before that exalted personage.

All these tokens of honor and consideration astonished Mr. Lambert not a little. He had already told me in the Mauritius that he had very many good friends at the queen’s court, and dangerous enemies also, who might have taken advantage of his absence to slander him in the vilest manner, not only in her eyes, but in Prince Rakoto’s too. But a circumstance that Mr. Lambert now confided to me for the first time was, that attempts had been made in another quarter to prejudice the queen against him, and that he expected not exactly to be coldly received, but to be looked upon with some degree of suspicion.

And now, for the first time, I got an insight into Mr. Lambert’s real plans and intentions, which were certainly not calculated to prepossess the queen in his favor.

When Mr. Lambert came to Tananariva for the first time in the year 1855, and saw with what cruelty the queen ruled, a wish arose in his mind to free the unhappy people from this tyrant. He succeeded in gaining the friendship of Prince Rakoto, who was also deeply moved by the people’s misery, and who at that period told Mr. Lambert that he cared not who ruled over the nation so long as the government was good and just. They soon came to an understanding, and Mr. Lambert made a treaty with Prince Rakoto, and conceived the design of seeking help from either the French or English government.

In the year 1856 he went to Paris, and in a private interview with the emperor he made him acquainted with the boundless misery of the people of Madagascar, and tried to induce the French autocrat to come to the assistance of that unhappy country. But it is difficult to enlist the sympathy of a European government where philanthropy and not state interest is in question. This audience had no result, and an interview of Mr. Lambert with the English minister, Lord Clarendon, also led to nothing; nay, instead of any advantage accruing from this step, it was productive of difficulty and discomfiture, for every thing Mr. Lambert had done in reference to Madagascar came to the ears of a great missionary society in England. The society feared that, in the event of the French occupation of the island, the Roman Catholic religion might be the only form of worship introduced and licensed, which, in their opinion, would be, of course, a much greater misfortune for the inhabitants than the mere fact of their being ruled by an utterly cruel woman, like Queen Ranavola, who plays with human lives and sacrifices them at her pleasure! The society accordingly formed the notable resolution of opposing Mr. Lambert in every possible way, and immediately dispatched a chosen member, a missionary, to Tananariva to acquaint the queen with Mr. Lambert’s design against her.

To judge from what occurred, as it was reported to me, it would appear that even an English missionary is capable of abandoning truth and sincerity in order to effect a purpose, and, upon occasion, to employ arts of a Jesuitical kind.

In the Mauritius, where the missionary made some stay before proceeding to Madagascar, he ventured to assert that Queen Ranavola had summoned him to Madagascar!

On his arrival at Tananariva he took care to impress upon the queen that he had been dispatched to her by the English government for the purpose of assuring her that England desired nothing more than to continue the same friendly relations with her country which had existed in the time of George the Fourth. He farther informed the queen of every thing that Mr. Lambert had undertaken against her in France and England; represented that gentleman as a very dangerous person, and a spy in the employ of the French government; and predicted that Mr. Lambert would speedily make his appearance, accompanied by a body of French troops, to depose her in favor of her son.

If even these misrepresentations had been made to effect some noble purpose, they could only have been justified by the very Jesuitical axiom that “the end sanctifies the means.” But the object sought here was to impede, or perhaps altogether to frustrate, a truly Christian and philanthropic work, an undertaking calculated to promote the well-being of the entire nation. A missionary society ought surely to understand the principles of brotherly love better than this, and keep in view the maxims of religion, and especially to remember that they are not to be made subservient to political views.

The missionary’s calling is the most exalted of any, for to few men are vouchsafed the opportunities of doing good that fall to his lot; but the misfortune is, that the majority of missionaries busy themselves more in worldly intrigues than in the amelioration of the human race, and that, instead of inculcating charity, union, and toleration, they excite their followers by their preachings to hate, contemn, and, if possible, to persecute every sect but their own. I can only refer my readers to what I have written on this subject in my former works, particularly concerning the English and American missionaries.

So the missionary from England came to Tananariva bearing the sword instead of the olive-branch. He not only unfolded Mr. Lambert’s alarming schemes to the queen, but gave Prince Rakoto a long lecture on the exceeding turpitude of his conduct toward his royal mother in meditating revolt, declaring, moreover, that the English court had been so shocked by the news as verily to have _put on mourning_!

The prince condescended to excuse himself by asserting, in reply, that, had he meditated removing his mother from the throne to place himself upon it, he should have merited the reproach; but that such was not the case, as he merely wished to deprive the queen of the power of perpetrating cruelties; every other privilege he wished her to retain, and for himself he had asked nothing at all.

At Tananariva, and also in the Mauritius, a report was circulated that Mr. Lambert had obtained the prince’s signature to the contract by fraud; that the prince had not been at all inclined to enter into a private treaty with Mr. Lambert, but that the latter had invited him to a banquet, intoxicated him, and prevailed on him to sign while in that condition. It was farther stated that when, on the following day, Prince Rakoto heard what he had done, he was so incensed against Mr. Lambert that he had banished him from his presence forever. Mr. Lambert was therefore very considerately advised never to return to Madagascar, as he might fear the worst from the hatred and contempt alike of the queen and of Prince Rakoto.

At Tananariva the prince himself told me the story of the signing of the treaty. He let me read the document, and assured me that the tale of the intoxication was a fiction; that he had perfectly understood what he was doing, and that he never repented this step at all. I much wish the author of this scandalous report could have seen with what contemptuous anger he was spoken of on this occasion.

I must also contradict a statement that the English missionary spread abroad in the Mauritius on his return from Madagascar. He boasted every where of the favorable reception he had met with at Tananariva, and of the great favor he enjoyed at the hands of the queen and of Prince Rakoto. This favor was so great, in fact, that after a stay of scarcely four weeks at Tananariva he received a peremptory order to depart. He applied for permission to remain longer, alleging as a reason that the fever season was not yet past, and disease was still rife in the lowlands. He begged the queen to take this into consideration, and not to expose him to mortal danger. But all was in vain; he was compelled to quit Tananariva. The queen was highly exasperated against him because he had distributed some Bibles, while Prince Rakoto resented his behavior toward Mr. Lambert.

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