HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
485 
On another occasion, Mr. Hastie was requested by the 
king to visit one of the officers’ wives, who was at that time 
ill; but not feeling himself sufficiently skilful to administer 
relief in a case such as her’s, he requested Mrs. Jeffery, 
the wife of the Missionary, to go in his stead. This 
request was complied with; and to a message of inquiry 
from the king, expressed her regret that a woman in her 
situation had not been better attended to; expressing her 
fears that she could not recover. Her predictions were 
but too well founded. The woman died in a few hours; 
and the king remarked to her relatives, that the people 
around her should have been more careful. 
On the following day, the mother and sister of the de¬ 
ceased, her husband’s mother, and two near relations, consti¬ 
tuting all the family, involved in the deepest grief at their 
loss, requested permission to take the tangena, to prove their 
innocence of any intended neglect or maltreatment of the 
deceased, for there was every reason to believe they had 
sincerely loved and faithfully attended upon her, according to 
their limited knowledge. Radama told them there was no 
occasion for the ordeal, and that they were fools for proposing 
it, as out of five, some one would most likely suffer; but they 
all declared that the guilty alone could be injured, and re¬ 
peated their request to be allowed to prove their innocence, 
stating that it was necessary for their characters that they 
should do so, or the world would consider them guilty. 
The king finally permitted the ordeal to be resorted to; 
and the administerer of the potion having, as Radama ex¬ 
pressed it, made the draught a little too bitter, every one of 
the five fell victims to this feeling of honour, and not a tear 
was shed for them. 
Unquestionably the tangena is a scourge, and a terrible 
scourge, to the country—perhaps its direst: yet it would 
