CHAP. V. TRECAUTIONS AGAINST CHOLERA. l.is 



by ties stronger than those of mere acquaintanceship. No 

 symptom of indisposition was observable when I left ; and 

 now I learned that within a fortnight after my departure, 

 father, mother, and two dear children, were numbered with 

 the dead. Mr. Banks, the pious and devoted military chap- 

 lain, with many others whom I knew, had been swept away 

 by the fearful visitation, and mourning and desolation seemed 

 to fill the land. 



The next morning officers from the governor came to say, 

 that accounts of the fearful ravages of the cholera at Mau- 

 ritius, at the time when I left, had been sent from Tamatave 

 to the capital. That, on that account, I could not go up to 

 Antananarivo ; and that nothing which had come from Mau- 

 ritius was to be taken to the capital. So great was the 

 alarm created by the representations given of the virulent 

 and fatal nature of this disease, that the system of relays of 

 messengers organised by the government was employed, and 

 the message from the capital was delivered in five days after- 

 wards in Tamatave, though the distance by the ordinary route 

 is three hundred miles. Indeed, so determined was the go- 

 vernment to prevent, if possible, the introduction of this 

 dreaded scourge, that a proclamation was issued the following 

 day ordering that all articles of trade which had been landed 

 from the ships should be exposed to the sun and wind for 

 the space of forty days ; that all the dollars received in pay- 

 ment for the cargoes of bullocks which had been sold should 

 be buried in the sand forty days, in order to secure the 

 removal of any contagion which might attach to them ; and 

 that all vessels arriving at any port of JVIadagascar, from 

 whatever part of the world they might come, should be put 

 into quarantine for the same period. A vessel soon after- 

 wards came in from the Sechelles, but was obliged to leave 

 without supplies before the time of quarantine had expired ; 



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