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buried alive; numbers, towards the conclusion of the tragical 
scene, are strangled or suffocated, the people on such occa- 
sions never waiting to finish effectually the dreadful work, 
but escaping from the house as soon as they imagine the 
spirit to be departing, lest they should come in contact with 
it in its flight. It is a fact that the administrators can, and, 
in the case of slaves, actually do restore the individuals to 
animation; yet, on other occasions, the unfortunate creatures 
are either instantly tumbled into a grave, and covered with 
earth and stones, or they are left in the open air, a prey to 
the wild dogs, which are continually prowling about at night. 
Supposing that the sensibility of some, thus prematurely in- 
terred, should revive whilst they are under ground, how 
dreadful must be the horror of such a situation! Borne down 
by a weight of incumbent soil, which their feeble efforts are 
quite unable to raise, and breathing for a few seconds the 
small portion of air that alone can reach them, a flash of re- 
collection but bringing to their minds the scene that has just 
passed, to oppress them with a sense of that ignominy and 
horror which the Malagassy people are taught from their 
earliest infancy to attach to the conviction of sorcery, both 
_ the minds and bodies of these wretched victims must be over- 
whelmed with such intolerable agony; as renders death a 
happy release. 
No less revolting must be thee: sintditio oh nd nhiimi 
left to the rapacity of the wild dogs. If roused to conscious- 
ness by the attacks of these creatüres, and possessing sufficient 
sensibility to understand their condition, yet not strength 
enough to repel the devourers, how dreadful must it be to 
resign themselves to be torn piecemeal by the famished 
animals! The numerous fabulous tales that obtain credit 
among the natives, of persons recovering after death, and- 
appearing again after burial, &c. probably owe their origin to 
such reanimations as those which I have described. - The 
natives make it very easy to account for such revivificati 
without implicating the virtues of the Tanghin; since they 
ascribe all wonderful events to the influence of some appro- 
priate charm, and imagine there is a charm or “ medicine of 
