146 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR 



CHAP. VI. 



Domestic Slavery in Madagascar. — Prices of Slaves. — Modes of PunishmeTit. 

 Numbers of Slaves. — Native Manufactures. — Rofia Cloth. — Native Bas- 

 kets. — Fondness of Natives for Barter. — Conversations with the People. — 

 Desire after Education. — Historical Notice of the Persecutions of the Chris- 

 tians. — Simple Scriptural Character of their Faith. — Testimonies in their 

 Favour. — Scriptural Basis of their Religious Organisations and Observ- 

 ances. — Social Gatherings. — Perils to which they have been exposed. — 

 Public Confessions. — Constancy unto Death. — Nature and Severity of 

 their Punishments. — Numbers who have suffered on account of their Re- 

 ligion. — Executions in 1849. — Latest Edict against Christian Observances. 

 — Opinions of the Natives which render Christianity peculiarly criminal in 

 the Estimation of the Heathen. — Claims of the Christians to Sympathy and 

 Compassion. 



In the domestic arrangements of the Malagasy, most of the 

 employments connected with providing and preparing food 

 are performed by slaves. Slavery, in fact, is one of the " do- 

 mestic institutions " of the country. It involves the buying 

 and selling of men and women, sometimes in the j)ublic 

 markets, and at other times, by taking them about from place 

 to place, and offering them like any other goods for sale. 



I was walking one day on the beach with my companion, 

 when a man approached us, followed by a boy about eleven 

 or twelve years old. The man stopped, and asked an officer 

 standing near if he wanted a slave, and, pointing to the boy, 

 said he was for sale ; the price, he added, was ten dollars. 

 The party appealed to declining to purchase, the man made 

 a sign to the boy and then walked on, the slave following at 

 the distance of a few paces. On another occasion, as I was 

 sitting at breakfast, my servant came to say that some one 

 wished to speak to me, and, on my going out, I found two 



