434 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR 
CHAP. XVI. 
museum under the care of Professor Owen in London; at 
whose earnest entreaty I had used my best endeavours, though 
without success, to obtain relics of the dodo in Mauritius, 
and the rare and wonderful Cheiromya Madagascarensis. I 
had given the presents in question to the special charge of one 
of my attendants; but they had been forgotten when the other 
THE SPINY TENREC. 
things were removed, and on my sending back afterwards to 
inquire about them, they could not be found. 
About ten o’clock on the day when my friends left me we 
reached Amboilefo, where we halted at the residence of the 
mother of the wife of a French trader at Tamatave, for which 
place the mother had that morning set out. But the two 
daughters, one of whom had recently become a widow, received 
me very kindly, and soon provided a hospitable breakfast. 
The young widow wore her hair unplaited and dishevelled; 
and this, with her wan face, the result of long illness, and the 
low plaintive voice in which she spoke, together with the as¬ 
pect of a weak sickly child which lay in her arms, strongly ex¬ 
cited my compassion. They were evidently a family of some 
consideration, for the spacious enclosed court in front of the 
house was half filled with carefully-constructed tombs of stone, 
some of them of large dimensions; and I was told these were 
the tombs of the family. 
