chap. ir. 
APPEARANCE OF TAMATAVE. 
21 
were spent, who, after committing to the deep his eldest child, 
died during a voyage from Madagascar to Mauritius in the 
miserable hold of a bullock ship, stretched on a mattress 
spread upon bags of rice, and separated only by bags of rice 
from the cattle in the hold ; and although the circumstances 
in which our last hours may be passed are of little conse¬ 
quence in comparison with the results to which they tend, 
I certainly felt at the time that I should not like to pass my 
last night in such a cabin, or to die under such circumstances. 
At midnight our course was changed, and we steered again 
towards the shore with the wind slightly favourable. By 
eight o’clock the land was visible, notwithstanding clouds 
and rain. At noon we were near enough to see the hollow 
of the line of coast on which Tamatave is situated, and to dis¬ 
tinguish the white native flag floating over the battery ; and 
about one o’clock on the 18th we cast anchor at a short dis¬ 
tance within the reefs and about a mile, and a half from the 
village, grateful for that Divine protection through which we 
had reached in safety our destined port. 
The anchorage at Tamatave is little more than a roadstead, 
protected by reefs, but exposed to the winds from the east 
and the north. There is considerable space within the reefs, 
and the holding ground is good. The village of Tamatave 
seemed to be built upon a point of land stretching into the 
sea towards the south, which we afterwards found to be not 
more than three or four hundred yards wide, its surface di¬ 
versified by sand-hills thrown up by the wind or sea to the 
height of fifteen or twenty feet above the ordinary level of the 
water. This low shore appeared generally covered with brush¬ 
wood, rushes, or grass, and the several species of pandanus near 
the beach towards the north, with a few tall cocoa palms grow¬ 
ing to the south of the anchorage, gave quite a tropical character 
to its vegetation, though much less rich and luxuriant than the 
verdant and beautiful bays among the South Sea Islands. The 
