ghaf. xiv. APPEARANCE AND DRESS OE THE QUEEN. 
381 
fixed over the queen, and a smaller scarlet umbrella, with¬ 
out ornament, was over the princess. The queen’s figure 
is not tall, but rather stout, her face round, the forehead 
well formed, the eyes small, nose short, but not broad, lips 
well defined and small, the chin slightly rounded. The whole 
head and face small, compact, and well proportioned; her 
expression of countenance rather agreeable than otherwise, 
though at times indicating great firmness. She looked in 
good health, and vigorous, considering her age, which is said 
to be sixty-eight. 
Her majesty wore a crown made of plates of gold, with an 
ornament and charm, something like a gold crocodile’s tooth, 
in the front plate; she had also a necklace and large ear¬ 
rings of gold. Her dress was a white satin lamba, with 
sprigs of gold, which, considering the lamba as the national 
Hova costume, was quite a queenly dress. The prince, her 
son, wore his star, and a coronet of apparently green velvet, 
bordered with a ring and band of leaves of massive silver. 
His cousin. Prince Ramboasalama, wore a black velvet cap 
embroidered with gold. Many of the officers wore silk lambas 
over their clothes. 
Including the members of the queen’s family, officers of 
the government, and attendants, there might be perhaps 
eighty or a hundred persons in the balcony, but a becom¬ 
ing dignity and propriety of deportment was manifest in all. 
No one spoke besides the queen and her orator, excepting 
the prince, and one or two others near her person, who replied 
to some remarks which the queen addressed to them; and, 
could the remembrance of the tragic scenes which Madagascar 
has witnessed within the last twenty or thirty years have been 
blotted out, I should have gazed on the spectacle with¬ 
out any diminution of interest and pleasure, as exhibiting, in 
connection with the ruling power of the country, the outward 
indication of its progress and civilisation. 
