HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
419 
distant. He was not allowed to change his linen, to take 
any packages, or even to enter his house to take leave of 
his family. The court-yard of his house was filled with 
serpents, large bags-full of which had been brought and 
emptied out on the ground. These reptiles are the 
imagined servants of the idol Ramahavaly, and the executors 
of his anger; and it was desired that the people should 
regard the number then brought to the immediate vicinity 
of Mr. Lyall’s dwelling, as drawn to the spot by the influ¬ 
ence of the idol, and hence they were held up by the priests 
as indications of the power and anger of Ramahavaly. Mr. 
Lyall was told that the idol had ordered him to leave, and 
was come to send him away; and thus he was rudely 
hurried off on foot, the priest refusing to allow him to ride 
to the village where he was to wait the further intimations 
of the idol’s will. As he was led away, the keeper of the 
idol Ramahavaly walked after him, carrying on the top of 
a pole the idol, enveloped in a small covering of scarlet 
cloth; fifty athletic men, either the keepers of the idol, or 
the relatives of such, followed immediately after, walking two 
abreast, and having their bodies uncovered to the waist, 
each man bearing in his hand a serpent, which he held by 
means of a small quantity of grass or straw. They were 
attended by a great number of the votaries of the Ramaha¬ 
valy,—or spectators, whose attention had been excited by 
their novel proceedings. 
The procession moved along in the most profound silence, 
the men carrying the serpents frequently lifting up the 
hand in which the reptile was held, exhibiting it, as it had 
twined its slimy folds round his hand or arm, to the great 
terror of the spectators, who expected that this manifesta¬ 
tion of what they were taught to regard as Ramahavaly’s 
anger, would be followed by still more serious consequences 
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