278 WHALING AND FISHING. 



town to load a dozen vessels. The natives were 

 moderately civil, but evidently not at all cordial 

 But it w'as their cattle and not themselves w 

 wanted ; and so, the business being conducted OD 

 the cash and one price principle, there was but 

 little difficulty in our intercourse with them. 



The large hump cattle were brought alongside, 

 one at a time, in native canoes. We hoisted them 

 in and bestowed them in the hold, in stalls pre- 

 pared for them. 



On the second day after our arrival in port, I, 

 with the other seaconnies, took a walk up to the 

 town, which is situated, in Madagascar fashion, 

 upon a hill, a quarter of a mile from the beach. 

 It consisted of an assemblage of most wretched 

 looking huts, dark and poorly fitted within, and 

 unprepossessing without. A mud wall surrounded 

 the place, and with a moat, formed its chief de- 

 fense against an enemy. 



Over the gate at which we entered, twenty 

 human sculls were ranged in a semi- circle. These, 

 now bleached by several rainy seasons, were once 

 the property of some English sailors, who fell 

 into the hands of the natives while making an 

 attack upon the town some years before 



When news reached the governor of the Mauri- 

 tius that these barbarous trophies were yet dis- 

 played before the eyes of British and French 

 traders, a remonstrance and request for their 

 deliverance into the handg of a British agent, for 

 decent burial, was despatcted to the Madagascar 



