232 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR chap. ix. 



the popular notion that the snake has the power of exercising 

 some mesmeric or other influence through the steady fixing 

 of its eye, and that whatever intercepts this gaze breaks as it 

 were the charm, and sets the prisoner free. 



Numbers of the people from the adjacent posts came to 

 see us during the forenoon of the next day. Amongst them, 

 and accompanied by a female attendant, came Botha's wife, a 

 quiet, respectable, grief-stricken woman, apparently about 

 forty years of age. After sitting in silence some time, she 

 said she came to ask if we could give her any tidings of 

 Botha. He had been implicated in the war, and was at that 

 time suffering his sentence in the colony. She said she had 

 written several times by post, but had received no reply. She 

 was told it was believed he was well, and conducting himself 

 with propriety, but that probably he had not the means of 

 writing to her. She has a son and two daughters, but no 

 means of support, all Botha's land being declared forfeited. 

 We were informed that she is highly respected by the people, 

 who sympathise with her and allow her to cultivate portions 

 of their land for subsistence. 



Amonofst others who came was the schoolmistress of 

 Buxton, an intelligent and respectable woman, who deplored 

 the dispersion of her school, and expressed her hopes that the 

 land on which the school stood, and which had been seized, 

 would be restored, the building repaired, and the children 

 ao-ain collected for instruction. The seizure has since been 

 declared unlawful, and it is hoped the school will be reopened. 

 A few weeks before our arrival the governor had been at the 

 settlement : he visited the church and school, and called upon 

 the daughters of the late missionary; he has encouraged 

 them to persevere with the school, and expressed himself to 

 Mr. Green, one of the officers of the church, as pleased with 

 what he saw of the efforts of the people to repair the 

 devastations of the war. Sir George Grey also, during his 



