HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
289 
Missionaries, and formed no small part of the pleasure they 
experienced in their work. A considerable part of the 
stimulus operating on the minds of the scholars arose, no 
doubt, from their desire to please the king; what the sove¬ 
reign directed to be done, having been engaged in with 
alacrity and energy. Besides this, the taratasy—learning 
to read and write—carried with it all the charm of novelty, 
and thus both operated favourably in promoting that degree 
of proficiency which afforded so much satisfaction to their 
teachers. 
It could, however, scarcely be expected that some 
jealousies should not be created in the minds of the natives 
generally, during these new, and to them somewhat 
incomprehensible, proceedings. They well knew that the 
white people, who had previously visited the capital, had 
come to purchase their countrymen; that by their means 
their children and relations had been taken away, and sold 
into slavery; and they were still jealous of the strangers at 
the capital, though, as themselves were witnesses, engaged 
in the benevolent employment of teaching their offspring 
under the public and avowed sanction of the king. It was 
not long after Mr. Jeffreys had formed his school, that 
whispers and murmurs were heard, tending to convey sus¬ 
picion of the Missionaries being leagued with Radama to 
obtain their children, under pretence of instructing them, 
but ultimately selling them into slavery; and in this 
suspicion they fancied they were supported by the fact, 
that Prince Rataffe had returned from England, and had 
not brought back with him the Malagasy youths. Instead 
of their coming back, more white people had arrived, and 
how many more might come they could not tell. Their 
suspicions soon grew into the most anxious fears; and 
parental affection, under a somewhat extraordinary form, 
II. 
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