CHAPTER II 



TAMATAVE AND FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE COUNTRY 



IT was on a bright morning in September, 1863, that I first 

 came in sight of Madagascar. In those days there was 

 no service of steamers, either of the " Castle " or the 

 " Messageries Mari times " lines, touching at any Madagascar 

 port, and the passage from Mauritius had to be made in what 

 were termed " bullockers." These vessels were small brigs or 

 schooners which had been condemned for ordinary traffic, but 

 were still considered good enough to convey from two to three 

 hundred oxen from Tamatave to Port Louis or Reunion. It 

 need hardly be said that the accommodation on board these 

 ships was of the roughest, and the food was of the least appetis- 

 ing land. A diet of cabbage, beans and pumpkin led one of 

 my friends to describe the menu of the bullocker as " the green, 

 the brown, and the yellow." Happily, the voyage to Mada- 

 gascar was usually not very long, and in my case we had a quick 

 and pleasant passage of three days only ; but I hardly hoped 

 that daylight on Wednesday morning would reveal the country 

 on which my thoughts had been centred for several weeks past ; 

 so it was with a strange feeling of excitement that soon after 

 daybreak I heard the captain calling to me down the hatchway : 

 " We are in sight of land ! " Not many minutes elapsed before 

 I was on deck and looking with eager eyes upon the island in 

 which eventually most of my life was to be spent. We were 

 about five miles from the shore, running under easy sail to the 

 northward, until the breeze from the sea should set in and enable 

 us to enter the harbour of Tamatave. 



There was no very striking feature in the scene no towering 

 volcanic peaks, as at Mauritius and Aden, yet it was not 

 without beauty. A long line of blue mountains in the distance, 

 covered with clouds ; a comparatively level plain extending 

 from the hills to the sea, green and fertile with cotton and sugar 

 and rice plantations ; while the shore was fringed with the tall 



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