34 
MADAGASCAR. 
service, Generals Tazo and Hazo; I’ll leave them 
in their hands for a while, and have no doubt as to 
the result.” Tazo is the name of the dreaded 
Malagasy fever, and Hazo that of the almost 
impenetrable forest between the coast and the 
capital. An important treaty was concluded 
between Great Britain and Radama in 1817, by 
which the sale of slaves beyond the seas was 
prohibited, and the introduction of European 
teachers and artisans, for the instruction of the 
natives, was facilitated. The agents of various 
philanthropic societies, but chiefly those of the 
London Missionary Society, set up schools and 
workshops, under the protection and patronage of 
Radama, and the native youth were taught the 
art of printing, as well as working in stone, 
leather, iron, brick, and wood ; and they were 
also instructed most carefully how to build houses, 
churches, palaces, and bridges, and to improve 
their own dwellings and dress both in material 
and shape : so that those people, who are naturally 
painstaking and very patient, with the imitative 
faculty strongly developed, advanced rapidly in 
civilisation and in the application of the useful 
arts. They were also taught to read and write 
their own language, which had not previously 
been reduced to writing or printed ; and although 
in 1820 there were not more than six persons, 
it is said, who could read it even in Arabic let- 
