No. V. 
ISLAND OF MADAGASCAR. 
CHAPTER I. 
SITUATION— EXTENT— PRODUCTIONS— CHARACTER OF 
THE NATIVES. 
BEING desired by the Directors of the Missionary 
Society, before I left England, to send a mission to the large 
island of Madagascar, during my residence in South Africa, 
if I found it practicable, I endeavoured of course to obtain 
all the information I could respecting it. Mr Milne, Mis- 
sionary to the Chinese Empire, on his way thither, touching 
at the Cape of Good Hope, I requested him on his arrival 
at the Isle of France, to procure all the information he 
could respecting Madagascar, in that adjoining island. 
From the papers respecting it which I received from him, 
duplicates of which were transmitted to the Society, it ap- 
pears that he acted with much judgment and industry in ful- 
filling my request. To his papers, chiefly, I am indebted 
for the following account ; 
Madagascar is an African island, distant only about forty 
leagues from the eastern shore of the Continent; situated in 
the Indian Ocean, extending from north to south upward 
of eight hundred miles. It is called by the natives Madacasc, 
or Madecassa; by the Portuguese, who discovered it, 
St. Lawrence; by the French, L' Isle Dauphin; and by the 
Persians, Arabians, &c. Serandib. 
The island is reported to be divided into twenty eight 
provinces, the chief of which is the valley of Amboul, lying 
at the south end of it, which is watered by three great rivers, 
and covered with wood adapted to the construction of 
houses, &c. The district is also fertilized by many small 
streams : it is governed by twelve chiefs, and supposed to 
contain about fifteen thousand persons, and is considered by 
