256 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAF. X. 
long as it was supposed he could hear. This, I was informed, 
was in compliment to the visitor. 
Many of my former friends came to visit me in the course 
of the day; and, among other indications of welcome, I 
received a note from the governor, inviting me to a dinner to 
be given on the same day to a foreigner about to proceed to 
the capital. I was but ill prepared to appear at a public 
dinner, and should have preferred being omitted in the number 
of guests at this festive gathering; but as the governor seldom 
invited the foreigners at the port to meet him, and I might 
have been considered wanting in respect to the authorities of 
the place had I declined, particularly as the invitation came 
from two sources and was intended as a mark of respect, I 
gratefully accepted it as such. 
The two officers sent to conduct me to the place, walked on 
each side of me, one having a spear in his hand, the other a 
naked sword. On arriving at the house of the chief judge, 
where the company were assembled, the governor and other 
chief officers gave me a very cordial welcome. Having 
placed me next to himself at dinner, the governor, who had 
been long a pupil of the missionaries and speaks English to¬ 
lerably well, conversed in the most friendly manner during 
the evening, and, when he proposed my health, wished me a 
pleasant journey to the capital. I was somewhat surprised to 
find my friend the harbour-master in the company, and to see 
him whom I had visited and left ill with the fever in bed in 
the morning dancing with a Frenchman in the evening. 
It would have been deemed disrespectful for any one to de¬ 
part before the health of the queen had been drunk by the 
company; but as soon as this had been done I took my leave 
of the governor and his companions, and reached my residence 
about nine o’clock. Here I found many of my former 
friends, some of whom had come from a distance; and with 
them I remained in deeply interesting conversation until a 
