989 
unaided by the light of revelation, turn such a conviction. - 
How different were the moral and intellectual state of a 
nation, possessing a true knowledge of the power of the . 
Almighty Creator, and of the infinite wisdom, mercy, and - 
consistency, with which He exercises it! No argument is 
necessary to prove that our first object among such a people 
should be to rectify their views of the character and conduct 
of God; for no degree of ignorance in scientific matters, no 
intellectual poverty can compare with the effects produced by 
the dreadful obliquity of their moral sense in these matters. 
All other deficiencies are light, when weighed against their 
ignorance of Him, * whom to know is life eternal," and in 
acquaintance with whom all true wisdom has its beginning. 
-At present, so deeply rooted in the minds of all the Mala- 
gassy, from the Sovereign down to the slave, is the belief in 
witchcraft, and so blindly are they led by this belief, that the 
whole nation may be considered as labouring under a spell, 
as powerful as the fascination which they attribute to the un- 
fortunate sorcerers themselves. My fervent prayer is that the 
spell may be speedily dissolved, and the fascination disappear 
before the light of knowledge, and the power of divine truth; 
and with this prayer do I close my equally true and distress- 
ing narration of human folly and superstition. A 
Epwarp Baker. 
BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TANGHIN, 
TANGHINIA VENENIFLUA; 
By Professor Born. 
ies TANGHINIA VENENIFLUA. | E ads 
The genus Tanghinia, to which the fruit belongs whose 
history has now occupied so many of our pages, was esta- - 
blished by Aubert du Petit Thouars, in his ** Genera Nova 
Madagascariensia;" but its character, as well as that of the 
species, is fully given from the recent plant, in a letter which 
VOL, III. U 
