HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
409 
you so powerfully; let me try if it will be the same with me.” 
Upon which the king took the pole and walked gravely 
round the court without the slightest appearance of any 
extraordinary emotion. He then turned round to one of 
the chiefs, and said, “ Perhaps I am too heavy for the god 
to move; do you try, you are light enough.” Accordingly, 
the chief took the pole in his hands, and walked about, but 
without experiencing any ecstasy; and then returned it to 
the poor keeper, who slunk off, not a little mortified at the 
result of the king’s experiment. On some of the chiefs who 
were present, the effect was alike salutary and durable. 
The people are taught to believe that should any presume 
to question the power of Ramahavaly, or dare to sport with 
his claims, his anger is roused, and he prepares to vindicate 
himself by inflicting terrible vengeance upon the presump¬ 
tuous offender. As an indication of his displeasure, a 
serpent, it is said, instinctively coils itself around the neck 
of his guardian, and others around the arms of his attend¬ 
ants. Immense numbers of serpents will also publicly 
demonstrate the guilt of the offender, by as instinctively 
seizing upon his person, and strangling him, for having 
ventured to abuse or insult Rabiby—another epithet for the 
idol, literally signifying, “ beast,” or u animal,”—by way of 
eminence; 66 the god of beasts.” He is said, besides, to 
possess the power of vindicating his own insulted majesty, by 
inflicting upon such as contumeliously reject his authority, 
the very singular punishment, not exactly of twisting their 
neck, but of giving it that awkward kind of turn that would 
place the person’s face behind, and the back of his head in 
front; a reverse produced by a spell too potent for any 
power on earth to undo. 
The name of the idol kept at the capital is Ramanjaka- 
tsi-roa; signifying, 66 there are not two sovereigns,” or, 66 the 
