484 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
ing “ I paid you my debt, but you had not skill to retain 
it.” Fortunately, however, there were witnesses to this 
assertion; and the business being brought to trial at the 
capital, justice was done to the injured, and the guilty 
Laihova was condemned to slavery. 
The advocates for the use of the tangena would not, 
however, allow this instance to diminish the renown of the 
ordeal; and it was strongly asserted by them, that the 
error arose from the want of a due formality in adminis¬ 
tering the draught. 
It was about the same period that a man, residing on the 
confines of the province of Vonizongo, lost a bullock, that 
was well known to his neighbours by the singular mark of 
a red body and a white head. Going in search of the ani¬ 
mal along the skirts of a wood where he suspected it had 
strayed, he encountered a man laden with beef, which had 
the skin on, exactly resembling that of his own bullock. 
He immediately charged the man who had the beef with 
theft; and he not being able to give a satisfactory account 
of his burden, they mutually challenged each other, and 
the affair was submitted to the ordeal. The trial, in this 
instance, was made upon dogs; and the man who had been 
found with the beef was pronounced guilty, confiscated, 
and sold into slavery, as were also two of his sons, who had 
guaranteed their father’s innocence. 
A few days after this condemnation, the man who had 
lost the bullock met the person from whom it had been 
bought; when the vender, ignorant of what had occurred, 
asked the other why he was so careless about the bullock 
he had sold him; stating, that it had been more than a 
month amongst his herd. An acquaintance of the injured 
party being present, the bullock was restored, and the inno¬ 
cent sufferers emancipated. 
