HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
213 
the government under the severest penalties. There is, 
however, every reason to believe that it is still used secretly 
as a means of intoxication, especially in the districts and 
villages at a distance from the capital. 
The habits of life among the Malagasy being in many 
respects exceedingly simple, exempt them from much dis¬ 
ease, and favour the duration of life. And though the 
healing art is comparatively unknown, the period of human 
existence is not, on the average, shorter than among those 
nations in which the study and practice of medicine and 
surgery are pursued on the most enlightened and scientific 
principles. Though their towns and villages, their markets 
and places of public resort, shew a great disproportion in 
the number of men compared with the women, and fewer 
children than an equal adult population would generally 
exhibit in other parts of the world, it has been observed by 
those who have resided long in the country, that there are, in 
most sections of the island, an unusual number of very aged 
persons. Many appear, from the number of times at which 
the festival of Fandroana has occurred exactly at the same 
time, (an event which takes place only once in three and 
thirty years,) and from their recital of events within their 
recollection, to have numbered on earth nearly one hundred 
years; while there are others who are supposed to have 
attained a still greater age, and who, free from any particu¬ 
lar disease, seem to be gradually sinking under the accumu¬ 
lated weight of years. As an indication of the protracted 
period to which the human constitution retains its tone and 
vigour, it is remarked, that baldness is rarely seen but 
in extreme age, and that it is late in life before the hair 
becomes gray. Excepting therefore the swampy coast, 
and those parts of the island in which, from stagnant waters- 
