278 
FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE 
TANGHEN. 
Communicated in a letter to CHARLES TELFAIR, Esq. by the - 
Rev. Epwarp Baxer—1831. 
THE custom of administering the Tanghin as an ordeal has 
become far more universal during the present reign than at 
any other period of the Huwa Government. When her 
present Majesty, in the beginning of 1830, carried into effect 
her resolution of “cleansing her land from sorcerers,” an 
ordeal was commanded in every town and village, and in 
-Tannanarivoo scarcely any class of inhabitants escaped. 
On the 9th of March, 1830, in compliance with the Sove- 
reigns mandate, a notable administration of Tanghin took 
place. The accused persons amounted to about 30, includ- 
ing some of the highest in birth and rank in the kingdom. 
All the nobility recovered, while the unknown plebeians, who, 
according to the common jugglery, had been compelled to drink 
with them, died. The former made the usual triumphant 
entry into the town on the 17th, borne in open palanquins, 
amid the shouting, dancing, and grimaces of many thousands 
of the people. This spectacle, considered apart from the hor- 
rible superstition that gave rise to it, was truly ludicrous to an 
European eye. He who has witnessed in England the 
methods by which a strolling company of mountebanks seek 
to attract notice, has seen a miniature representation of this 
Malagassy festivity. A similar gaudy dress, composed of various 
materials and colours, in some instances dragging on the ground, 
in others too scanty to cover the body, the same antic move- 
ments and unmeaning sounds, accompanied the exhibition iu 
Madagascar; whilst the black or tawny visages, which glared 
through all other colours, bore no small resemblance to the 
painted mask of the harlequin fool. The nobility, with their 
relatives and friends, performed the principal part, and - 
certainly acted the mountebank to admiration. ‘The chief 
difference lay in the proportion of numbers; for while in Eng- 
land the exhibitors are few, and the staring mob is numerous, 
