224 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. VIII. 
in a chasm between two rocks, leaving her there to die; and 
when his fellow-servants had expostulated with him in vain, 
they brought the poor woman away, and, at the time of our 
visit, she was still living with her son and his wife on the farm. 
The horse-sickness was at this time so severe in the neigh¬ 
bourhood, that we left our horses at Olive Grove, and pro¬ 
ceeded with oxen to Somerset, now a thriving village, but 
formerly a government farm, for many years under the charge 
of Mr. Hart, the father of our host at Olive Grove. Here I 
passed the Sunday with Mr. Gregrowsky, the missionary, and 
his family; and was pleased with the earnestness of some of 
the people who applied for additional means for the education 
of their children. Before leaving, I also visited the beautiful 
and extensive farm of Gden Avon, about four miles from 
Somerset, where I was hospitably entertained by Mr. Hart, 
sen., and his daughter Mrs. Stretch. I felt great pleasure 
in being under the roof of this venerable patriarch, who had 
been sixty years in the colony, and whose name I had long 
held in high esteem on account of the kindness he had shown 
to two justly valued friends—one of them Mr. Williams, the 
devoted missionary to the Caffres, whom I had known in 
England, and whose name, although he has been dead six and 
thirty years, is still cherished with grateful affection by the 
people amongst whom he laboured. The widow of this de¬ 
voted man, suddenly and unexpectedly left alone with two 
helpless infants, amongst what were then designated a savage 
and murderous people, had herself to instruct them how to 
make a rude coffin and to dig a solitary grave for the remains 
of her departed husband; and it was in this season of lone¬ 
liness and trial, that she found a prompt and faithful friend 
in Mr. Hart. Hearing of her calamity, he hastened to the 
spot at the peril of his own life, endeavouring, with words of 
kindness, to soothe her anguish, and finally conveying herself 
and her children, with sympathy and tenderness, from the 
