PREFACE, 
ix 
I also avail myself of the present opportunity to 
acknowledge my obligations to Sir W. J. Hooker and 
Dr. Lindley, for the useful suggestions which they 
kindly offered, in directing my attention, previous 
to my departure from England, to the botanical 
treasures which Madagascar was known to contain. 
Nor would I omit on this occasion to express my 
grateful sense of the hospitality and kindness of 
His Excellency Sir James Higginson, Governor of 
Mauritius at the time of my visit, to General 
Sutherland and General Hay, the late Mr. and Mrs. 
Kelsey, the Rev. J. Le Brun, and Messrs. l’Estrange, 
as well as that of other friends in Mauritius and at 
the Cape of Good Hope. 
The kindness evinced by these friends was not only 
gratifying to myself personally, as a stranger amongst 
them, but also highly encouraging as an expression 
of the deep interest felt in the welfare of the people 
to whom my visits were directed. 
W. E. 
Hoddesdon, October, 1858. 
