190 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. VII. 
in their anxiety about the time disturbed me more than once. 
About four we arose, and after spending a short time together 
in that communion of feeling which had formed the basis of 
our intercourse, and receiving from my friends the latest ex¬ 
pression of their affectionate feeling, and the kind wishes 
which they had written down for me on the margin of a piece 
of newspaper after I had lain down to rest, we set out by the 
starlight of early morning towards the beach. The friendly 
chief who had sent me my bed for the night I found waiting 
under his verandah. He told me a canoe was ready for me on 
the shore, and he then bade me farewell. Before we were 
well out of his compound a man came to say that the ship 
was getting under way. We hastened on; the moon was 
shining brightly, and only a faint line of light indicated the 
approach of the dawn. When at the water’s edge, I took a 
hurried leave of my friends, and stepping into the little light 
canoe, was soon on my way to the ship. Hats and hands 
were waved as long as they could be seen, but I was soon 
unable to distinguish anything beyond the white lambas 
covering the figures still standing on the beach. 
On reaching the “ Castro,” I found the anchor nearly up. 
The wind was fair, so that before six we were out of the har¬ 
bour, the white surf rolling on the reefs behind us, and a 
light breeze from the land wafting us over the ocean. From 
the poop of our vessel I stood and gazed with strongly ex¬ 
cited feelings on the peopled shore, where the friends I had 
left still lingered, and between whom in their comparatively 
isolated solitude, and the deeply interested friends in my own 
remote native land, I had been as the wire of the telegraph, 
the medium of communicating thoughts and wishes of hal¬ 
lowed sympathy and kindness. And this, without reference 
to other advantages that may result from my visit, I felt to 
be a more than ample compensation for any trifling inconve¬ 
nience the voyage had occasioned. I had often before, espe- 
