228 
MADAGASCAR. 
for everything now depends upon his rallying 
power. Generous food, a change of air, and 
cheerful society, are the vital factors in any system, 
of cure. A move from the coast to the capital 
should be immediately determined upon, and thus 
the life may be spared and future suffering 
avoided. 
. The first foreign settlers in Madagascar were 
swept off in such numbers by the malaria, that 
the Isle of S. Marie was called the “ Grave of 
the French,” and “ the Churchyard,” and the 
“ Dead Island,” by Dutch and other sailors who 
visited the harbours of the east coast. Careful 
habits of life, abstinence from the use of spirits, 
and the regular use of the tejpid bath, will always 
mitigate the virulence of the fever, however, and 
prevent that utter wreck of the system which so 
many visitors have to deplore. On no account 
should the head or back of the neck ever be 
exposed to the sun, and it is a wise and even 
necessary precaution never to go abroad, even for 
a few minutes, without a helmet and thick two¬ 
fold umbrella. 
There is still a lingering superstition amongst 
the Betsimisaraka, and other tribes remote from 
the capital, as to the powers of the “ medicine 
man,” and he is occasionally consulted in cases 
of virulent epidemics, or unusually severe visita¬ 
tions of disease. In the years 1876-77, a terrible 
