chap. xii. THE WEEPING-PL ACE OE THE HOVAS. 
313 
they were collected from more remote provinces, and sold 
to factors or dealers, who resorted thither for the purpose 
of purchasing and conducting them to the coast. It was 
at this place that the manacled and goaded slave, forced from 
home and country, and all that makes life dear, obtained 
his first view of the sea, across which he was to be carried 
to a land of unknown hardships, misery, and death; and 
when he reached this spot, his eye had rested also, for the 
last time, on the lofty summits of the mountains of his be¬ 
loved Imerina. We do not wonder at such a spot being 
called “ The Weeping-place of the Hovas.” The treaty for 
the abolition of the trade in slaves, formed in 1817, was 
faithfully observed by Radama, who even put some of his 
own relatives to death for not regarding it; but it was vio¬ 
lated, during the absence of Sir R. Farquhar on a visit to 
England, by General Hall, who was acting governor at Mau¬ 
ritius at the time, and restored the traffic in slaves. In 
1820, when the British agent who was sent to renew the 
treaty, and the missionary, were on their way to the ca¬ 
pital, and just on the outskirts of the great forest before us, 
they met about a thousand slaves going from Imerina to 
the coast, each one chained by a ring of iron round the wrist, 
and bearing a heavy burden. 
As we continued our journey, the vegetation of the country 
around us became entirely changed. The rofia palm was 
no longer seen. The travellers’ tree was stunted and scarce ; 
but the base of the hills and the valleys were covered with 
the bamboo, which was far more abundant than during any 
former part of the journey. There were at least four distinct 
varieties : one a large growing kind, erect nearly to the point; 
a second smaller, seldom rising much above twenty feet in 
height, bushy at the base, and gracefully bending down its 
tapering point. A third kind rose in single cane, almost 
without a leaf, to the height of thirty feet or more; or, bending 
