236 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. cn.U'. ix. 



gratified with the encouraging circumstances under which, 

 assisted efficiently by his son Frederick, he had resumed his 

 labours among the Caffres. A considerable number had 

 gathered around him, and the circular huts clustered together 

 on the upper side of the slope formed quite a Caffre village. 

 About two hundred acres of land were irrigated and under 

 culture, and from some parts of this maize and Caffre corn 

 had already been gathered, while in others the crops were 

 still standing. Another portion of land of equal extent 

 admitted of culture so soon as the people should be able to 

 lead out the water of the river. We held in the evening a 

 deeply interesting meeting with the chiefs and principal men 

 of two Fingoe villages, one of them twenty miles distant, 

 who had come to ask for a missionary. 



Early the next morning we attended a religious service of 

 the people, and after breakfast visited the school, in which, 

 out of eighty-two scholars on the books, seventy-two were 

 present. The first class read, with considerable ease, a 

 chapter from the English Testament. They also recited 

 portions of the Scriptures, and answered questions in arith- 

 metic in English with readiness and accuracy. We then 

 spent some time in conversation with the Fingoe chiefs and 

 people, and in the afternoon resumed our journey. Our kind 

 friends furnished us with a team of oxen to relieve our own, 

 and to expedite our way to the next station ; but soon after 

 we had passed Fort White the night became so dark that 

 our guide declared he could not see his way, and the road 

 was so bad in consequence of the number of deep circular 

 holes that we were obliged to halt until daybreak in the 

 midst of a damp, boggy flat, tying our oxen to the wheels of 

 our waggon to prevent their being lost. 



Starting at daybreak we reached, in two or three hours, 

 Pirie, a Scottish missionary station; but as Mr. Eoss, the 

 missionary, had gone from home that morning, we continued 



