HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
349 
poor to resort to that industry which would afford them 
comfort and respectability. 
“As we advanced,” says Mr. Hastie in his journal, “the 
country was found to wear an appearance of plenty, and 
what is called comfort by the natives of Imerina. The 
dwellings are frail, yet the fine rice-fields, and gardens of 
manioc, sweet potatoes, plantains, and cotton, near them, 
and the stock of sheep, pigs, and poultry that share the 
family bed, remove every appearance of want. The reviving 
music of the milch cows bellowing for their calves, which 
are also the nightly inmates of the mansion, the barking of 
a number of watch-dogs, guiltless of the taste of flesh, pro¬ 
claim the possessor both great and rich—terms not long 
ago applied in this country to the owner of even a single 
dollar, and the individual who could show one was often 
congratulated on the extent of his wealth.” 
When encamping near the village of Bemasonandro, 
he had the pleasure of seeing about two roods of wheat, 
with an equal quantity of oats and barley, the cultivation 
of which he had introduced, and which promised a fair 
crop. 
On the 2d of November, the troops being assembled at 
an early hour, Radama proceeded to the capital, and was 
received at the usual place of assembly by his mother and 
family, his ministers, and a great number of people. After 
the customary salutations, the old chieftains commenced 
their usual loyal addresses, and were advancing to offer 
tribute, when the king, whose strength had been much 
reduced by many late attacks of fever, dismissed them 
until a public kabary should be held, and returned to his 
palace to seek the quiet and repose of which he was so 
much in need. 
Though scarcely well enough to bear the fatigue of 
