CHAP. X. VISITS OF WELCOME FROM THE NATIVES. 257 



late hour. From them I now learned that the circumstances 

 of my friends in general were favourable ; that some from 

 the interior, whom on my former visit I had left prostrate 

 with the fever, had recovered ; while four other valued Chris- 

 tian friends, some of whom had slept in my house in order 

 to be with me during the last night I had passed on the 

 shore, and who had accompanied me to the canoe that 

 was waiting at the water's edge on the bright beautiful 

 moonlight morning in which I had sailed from Madagascar 

 in 1844, had been cut off by fever. They were all in the 

 prime of life ; two of them men of great promise ; — one a re- 

 markably inquiring, intelligent, and amiable young man, an 

 aide-de-camp of the prince, and about twenty-four years of 

 age : the other, whom I used to call *' my tall friend," the 

 son-in-law of the governor of an adjacent province, a sort of 

 agent of the prince, and to me a most attached and consistent 

 Christian friend. He had died of fever in his thirty-third 

 year, leaving a widow and family at the capital. 



On the morning after my visit to the governor I rose soon 

 after daybreak, but almost before I was dressed friends came 

 with tokens of their good-will, — amongst them a chief and his 

 wife, followed by a little slave girl, bringing, along with other 

 presents, a bottle of sweet new milk; and, as they learned 

 that this was peculiarly acceptable, they continued to send it 

 every morning so long as I remained at Tamatave. 



I had missed from the governor's table an officer, who 

 during my former visits had always been present on such oc- 

 casions, and whom I used to call " my friend in the green 

 uniform," on account of his wearing a coat of green velvet 

 richly embroidered with gold lace, and a gold aiguillette. He 

 had been one of Eadama's officers, and was reported to have 

 been severe, or even cruel, in war. He filled an office of some 

 importance at Tamatave, spoke French vnth comparative ease, 

 and was often at my house. Notwithstanding the report of 



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