266 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
ciiap. x. 
the candles very useful at the places where we stopped for 
the night. 
A few weeks before my arrival at Tamatave M. Delas- 
telle, who had resided many years on the island as a merchant 
and planter, had died from taking an over-dose of chloroform, 
which he had been in the habit of using. Towards the close 
of the month three officers of the palace arrived at Tamatave 
to express the sovereign’s sympathy with M. Delastelle’s 
family, and her sense of his worth, for he had been associated 
with the queen in attempting to introduce the growth of the 
cane and the manufacture of sugar, which had recently given 
place to the distillation of arrack. 
On Monday the 28th of July I was present at the public 
meeting of the parties which took place in the large room of 
the house of the chief judge. The widow and relatives of 
the deceased, arrayed in plain and common attire, indicating 
that it was the season of mourning, sat together. The officers 
of the place were in native costume. The chief officer wore 
a large silk lamba of splendid pattern. The second officer 
had on a long robe of a bright orange colour, over which was 
a red scarf. The officers from the capital were in uniforms 
of blue cloth, with gold epaulettes and profusion of lace. 
There was much speaking on both sides, but Babangoro , the 
old hereditary chief of Tamatave, was by far the most effec¬ 
tive orator. I was struck with the novel mode and apparently 
graduated scale by which the estimated worth of the departed 
was specified in the speech of the chief of the embassy from 
the capital, who exclaimed in the course of his address, a sort of 
eulogium upon the departed, that “ the sovereign would have 
given 2000 dollars — yea, 3000 dollars,—yea, 5000 dollars, 
rather than that he should have died;” and I was told after¬ 
wards that this was a customary mode of expressing their 
sense of the loss occasioned by the death of public persons, 
and that sometimes the worth of the deceased was estimated 
