HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
151 
ance of the trade, and, as will appear in the progress of 
this history, made the most strenuous efforts to oppose any 
treaty for its abolition. They, least of all could sympathize 
in the delight manifested at the capital, when that result, 
so grateful to every lover of humanity, was secured and 
published. 
The observation of Rochon is perfectly correct, that for 
a long time the natives entertained the belief of European 
cannibalism. Such an opinion is not unfrequent in Mada¬ 
gascar at the present time, and was found to constitute a 
difficulty in the early establishment of Mission schools. 
Within the last eighteen years, parents have actually 
concealed their children in rice-holes, where some were 
suffocated, under the appalling and monstrous supposition 
that these schools were intended only to be treacherous 
means of entrapping their children, to satisfy the demon 
appetite of the whites for the flesh of their offspring! 
“ The Europeans,” said the parents, “ always came here 
before, to steal us and our children. What could they want 
with such a booty, but to eat them ? And now they come 
under a pretence of teaching our children; and, having once 
got them into their power, they will carry them away as 
in former days, when they must share the same dread¬ 
ful fate which others have met in past days.” The 
Missionaries lately resident on the island have had to 
encounter the very same objection—an objection which, 
however false and preposterous, it is not easy to 
refute to the satisfaction of a native, in whose fears, sus¬ 
picions, and profound ignorance of foreign manners, it has 
originated. If, however, it strongly marks the folly and ig¬ 
norance of the Malagasy, it stamps a well-merited censure 
on those who, by their practices as slave-traders, first 
awakened the revolting supposition. They have destroyed 
