266 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. chap. x. 



the candles veiy useful at the places where we stopped for 

 the night. 



A few weeks before my arrival at Tamatave M. Delas- 

 telle, who had resided many years on the island as a merchant 

 and planter, had died from taking an over-dose of chloroform, 

 which he had been in the habit of using. Towards the close 

 of the month three officers of the palace arrived at Tamatave 

 to express the sovereign's sympathy with M. Delastelle's 

 family, and her sense of his worth, for he had been associated 

 with the queen in attempting to introduce the growth of the 

 cane and the manufacture of sugar, which had recently given 

 place to the distillation of arrack. 



On Monday the 28th of July I was present at the public 

 meeting of the parties which took place in the large room of 

 the house of the chief judge. The widow and relatives of 

 the deceased, arrayed in plain and common attire, indicating 

 that it was the season of mourning, sat together. The officers 

 of the place were in native costume. The chief officer wore 

 a large silk lamba of splendid pattern. The second officer 

 had on a long robe of a bright orange colour, over which was 

 a red scarf. The officers from the capital were in uniforms 

 of blue cloth, with gold epaulettes and profusion of lace. 

 There was much speaking on both sides, but Bahangoro, the 

 old hereditary chief of Tamatave, was by far the most effec- 

 tive orator. I was struck with the novel mode and apparently 

 graduated scale by which the estimated worth of the departed 

 was specified in the speech of the chief of the embassy from 

 the capital, who exclaimed in the course of his address, a sort of 

 eulogium upon the departed, that " the sovereign would have 

 given 2000 dollars — yea, 3000 dollars, — yea, 5000 dollars, 

 rather than that he should have died;" and I was told after- 

 wards that this was a customary mode of expressing their 

 sense of the loss occasioned by the death of public persons, 

 and that sometimes the worth of the deceased was estimated 



