MEDICAL EXPERIENCES. 
229 
wave of small-pox epidemic swept down the east¬ 
ern coast of the island, from the province of 
Vohimare in the extreme north. It was sup¬ 
posed to have been introduced from Mauritius 
in a cargo of old uniforms. The natives, who 
have always fled before the dreaded nendra , as 
it is called by them, terror-stricken, endeavoured 
to elude its grasp, and to escape from its effects 
by burying themselves in the recesses of the 
forests and mountain-glens of the mterior. But 
the devouring pestilence would not be satisfied. 
Village after village was depopulated by it: the 
dead were left unburied upon the floors of their 
huts and by their own hearthstones. The sick 
were forsaken by their own kith and kin, so 
hopeless did the struggle against this most loath¬ 
some and relentless disease appear to them; and 
in some cases relatives were taken out and cast 
into the forests, with a little water and a bag of 
rice for sustenance, and stoned unmercifully by 
their children or parents, as the case might be, 
if they ventured to return to the precincts of 
their homes, or even to stand afar off and cry 
aloud for succour. During this time our hands 
were fully employed; and I found the medical 
knowledge which I had gained in England of 
great service when alone in the midst of these 
vast and perishing multitudes. I happened to 
be in Tamatave about the time that the small- 
