illustrations. Since his return to England, Mr. Ellis has presented specimens of this rare plant, a perfect skeleton, to the gardens at Kew, Chiswick, the Regent's Park, and the Crystal Palace, where they are all taking kindly to their new habitat.

Fifteen days elapsed, and the anxiously expected replies from the queen arrived. Courteous and kind, they were also very decided. The queen required compensation, besides which, there was much public business on hand;' and she 'recommended Mr. Ellis and Mr. Cameron to return across the water, lest they should be overtaken by sickness.' The Mauritius was safely reached again, and the 15,000 dollars, the amount demanded by the queen before she would re-open trade with that island, promptly subscribed by the merchants, with which Mr. Cameron returned at once to Tamatave. Left alone in the Mauritius, Mr. Ellis thoroughly did' that island, and nothing but our limits prevent our making several quotations from his most interesting account of a country little known. It is pleasant to say in few words that he found intelligent and Christian society, and both religious and literary institutions of a high order and in flourishing condition.

'As the month of November (1853) advanced, the people of Mauritius became anxious for tidings in Madagascar, and on the 19th of this month the "Nimble" arrived, with Messrs. Cameron and Mangeot from Tamatave, where they had accomplished the object of their visit, having paid the sum required by the queen as compensation for the injury inflicted on the country, and secured the re-opening of the trade on the same footing as that on which it had been carried on before the attack of the French and English vessels. Traffic was now to be free to people of all nations; prices were to be fixed between buyer and seller; ten per cent. duty was to be levied on all exports and imports; and no natives of Madagascar were to be taken out of the country.'

This successful piece of diplomacy, conceived and executed in a most honourable manner, was hailed enthusiastically at the Mauritius; cannons fired, dinners eaten, schooners chartered, and other colonial demonstrations were proper expressions of mercantile and religious men at the re-opening of free trade with so important an island as Madagascar. This event occasioned the immediate return of Mr. Ellis to Tamatave, in the expectation of being able to reach the capital, and have an audience with her Malagassy majesty. On the 8th of June, 1854, Mr.Ellis again proceeded thither, and after eight days of quarantine was permitted to land, the people on shore wondering much at the photographic apparatus, and concluding therefrom that our missionary diplomatist was a doctor. Mr. Eills's services were soon in requisition; he was sent for by a sick chief, whom at once he visited, the description of which we will give in his own words::

'I found the chief lying on a number of mats spread by the side of the fireplace. His wife was sitting near the doorway working at a fine kind of mat. One slave was in the outer room driving away the poultry and pigs as they approached, and another little slave girl squatting on the ground attended to the fire. The chief said he had moved to this low close hut for the sake of warmth: the thermometer at that time was generally between 60 and 70 degrees in-doors. He was an officer of the Government, and while I was talking with him one of his assist

ants or aides-de-camp entered with a couple of letters, which, at the chief's request, he read, and which the chief told him he must answer. The young man then went to a box at the side of the room, brought paper, pen, and ink, and seating himself cross-legged on the ground near the lamp, laid a quire of paper on his knee, and having folded a sheet, the chief raised himself on his mat and dictated while his secretary wrote a reply. When the letter was finished the secretary read it aloud, and the chief having approved, the writer brushed the sand adhering to his naked foot with the feathery end of his long pen upon the freshly written sheet to prevent its blotting, then folded his letter and departed to despatch it to its destination. There was something singularly novel and suggestive as to the process by which the civilization of nations is promoted in the spectacle I had witnessed. Little more than thirty years before, the language of Madagascar was an unwritten language; a native who had been educated at Mauritius was the only writer in the country, and he wrote in a foreign tongue; but now, without any of the appliances which are usually connected with a secretary's desk or office, a quiet, unpretending young man, seated on a mat on the floor in a low dark cottage 300 miles from the capital of the country, and with his paper on his knee, receives and writes with accuracy and ease the orders or instructions of his superior; and while the latter reclines in his sickness on his mats spread on the floor in his leaf-thatched hut, as his fathers had done for generations before, he has only to utter his wishes or his orders, and these are conveyed to those whom they may concern with as much authenticity and correctness as the most formal despatch from an office of the most civilized nation. And when I reflected that to such an extent had the native Government availed itself of the advantages of writing as that in the year 1836, when the late missionaries left the capital, there were 4000 officers employed who transacted the business of their respective departments by writing, and that such is the benefit or pleasure which the people find in thus communicating with each other that scarcely a traveller ever journeys from one place to another without being a letter-carrier, I was strongly impressed with the fact that, besides the benefits of their directly religious teaching, missionaries were rendering most important aid towards the enlightenment and civilization of mankind.'

From June to December he remained at Tamatave, making sundry excursions into the interior, botanizing on a most extensive scale, photographing many persons and rare vegetable productions, acting the 'kind physician' to all, and making full and careful observations on the manners and institutions of this almost unknown island. Most precious was the information obtained during these tedious months of expectant invitation to the capital; in fact, with the exception of the description of Tananarivo farther on, we commend, as deserving special attention, to our readers that part of the book containing an account of these six months' varied labours. We see another illustration of the advantages of a cultured mind even amongst comparatively savage peoples, and how a scholar can always find pleasant occupation where the unlettered would be exhausted with ennui, or be disgusted with native simplicity. Naturally, much of Mr. Ellis's attention was directed to the native Christians, and by some means, not of course made known, he contrived to hold considerable intercourse with them, and to gain very valuable information, not all new, but more specific and reliable than we have previously had, respecting the persecutions endured by the witnessing church of Madagascar. The edicts of the old Roman emperors, and the sufferings of the early Christians, are vividly recalled in scenes that but lately have been enacted in Madagascar. On one occasion thirty-seven Christians, with their wives and children, were reduced to perpetual slavery; some

thousands fined for being in possession of Christian books; and eighteen put to death, four of whom were burnt alive, and fourteen hurled from a steep rock in the vicinity of the capital. And yet amidst all, the tenacity with which these fervent Christians have adhered to their new faith has been invincible. A goodly list they have added to the noble army of martyrs; and at the present time-for though persecuting proclamations are relaxed, they are not suspended -multitudes are wanderers in caves, and in deserts, afflicted, destitute, and tormented, whilst many others have happily escaped to the Mauritius, where shelter, work, and religious supervision have been provided. Mr. Ellis shall describe the resolution of these Christians when death was at hand :

Those who had been appointed to die were treated with the greatest indignity. They were wrapped in old, torn, or dirty mats, and rags were stuffed into their mouths. Seventeen of them had been tied each along a pole, and had been thus carried between two men bearing the pole on their shoulders to the place where sentence was to be pronounced. One of their number being a young female walked behind the rest. Four of them being nobles were not killed in the ordi. nary way; as there is an aversion to the shedding of the blood of nobles, they were therefore sentenced to be burnt. When the sentence was pronounced some derided, and the condemned were then carried away to the places of execution. The four nobles were burnt alive in a place by themselves. Two of them—viz. Andriampinery and Ramanandalana, were husband and wife, the latter expecting to become a mother. At the place of execution life was offered them if they would take the required idolatrous oath. Declining to do this, they were bound and laid on the pile of wood, or placed between split poles, more wood being heaped upon them, and the pile was then kindled. Amid the smoke and blaze of the burning wood the pangs of paternity were added to those of an agonizing death, and at this awful moment the martyr's child was born. I asked my iuformants what the executioners or bystanders did with the babe; they answered, “Thrust it into the flames, where its body was burnt with its parents," its spirit to ascend with theirs to God.

The remaining fourteen were taken to a place of common execution, whither a number of felons who had been sentenced to death were also taken to be executed together with the Christians. The latter were put to death by being thrown over a steep precipice-the Tarpeian Rock of Antananarivo. Each one was suspended by a cord on or near the edge of the precipice, and there offered life on condition of renouncing Christ and taking the required oaths. Of these there was one who, though in the prospect of an ignominious, instant, and violent death, spoke with such calm self-possession and humble confidence and hope of the near prospect of glory and immortal blessedness, as very deeply to affect those around him. The young woman, who had walked to the place of execution, it was hoped would be induced to recant. With this view she was, according to orders, reserved until the last, and placed in such a position as to see all the others, one after avother, hurled over the fatal rock. So far from being intimidated she requested to follow her friends, when the idol-keeper present struck her on the face and urged her to take the oath and acknowledge the idols. She refused, and begged to share the fate of her friends. The executioner then said, "She is an idiot, and does not know what she says. Take her away." She was then taken from the place, and afterwards sent to a distant part of the country.

These fearful deeds of blood and fire were perpetrated in the month of March, 1849, and I did not learn that since that period persecution had been so violent as before, or that any had been put to death.'

The cholera was raging at this time at the Mauritius, and the queen fearing its introduction among her people, refused to allow Mr.

Ellis to visit the capital. A second time defeated in his long-cherished plans, he returned to England, stopping at the Cape, and visiting the stations of the London Missionary Society that lie within the colony.' Soon after his return he received a letter from the Malagassy Government granting permission to visit the capital,' and, nothing daunted by previous experiences, our veteran and most accomplished missionary embarked, in 1856, a third time for Madagascar. Arrived at the Mauritius, three days of pleasant sailing brought him to Tamatave, where the officers of the port, other natives, and European residents, expressed their pleasure at his arrival.' During Mr. Ellis's brief residence in England he had studied the working of the electric telegraph, and, greatly to their honour be it spoken, the 'International Telegraph Company' afforded him every facility for making himself acquainted with its management, and placed sufficient apparatus at his disposal to enable him not only to astonish, but to instruct the natives. It was not,' says Mr. Ellis, 'the blank unquestioning wonder of stolid ignorance, satisfied that the facts were something beyond immediate comprehension, and therefore probably supernatural, which they manifested, but the surprise and intense interest of thinking men, who seemed to feel that they had acquired a new mental treasure, though they yet only half understood the wonders before them.'

In August, 1856, Mr. Ellis started in his palanquin for the capital; the Government having furnished bearers and oxen for slaughter in abundance. A toilsome, tedious journey through the great fever dis. trict, the forest swamp of the island, had to be traversed, but the time was pleasantly whiled away by photographing and sketching, by rare discoveries of the flora of Madagascar, and by innumerable collections of plants, many of which are now growing heartily in our conservatories. We wish we had space to tell all that Mr. Ellis tells us of that vegetable wonder the traveller's tree,' Urania speciosa. The native name is 'ravinala,' or leaf of the forest, indicating its abundance. It affords not only shelter from the sun's rays, but every leaf, when tapped with the spear, pours out a pint and a half or a quart of 'cool, clear, and perfectly sweet water.' Nor is this all;

its leaves form the thatch of all the houses on the eastern side of the island. The stems form the partitions and often sides of the houses; and the hard outside bark is stripped from the inner and soft part, and having been beaten out flat, is laid for flooring; and I have seen the entire floor of a well-built house covered with its bark. The leaf, when green, is used as a wrapper for packages, and keeps out the rain. Large quantities are sold every morning in the markets for table-cloths, dishes, and plates, and folded into certain forms, it is used for spoons and drinking vessels.' Oh! that this tree

grew in England; no more crockery to be broken, or spoons to be lost, or paper to buy, or macintosh to keep out the wet; we see no reason, but many to the contrary, why Madagascar should be so favoured.

In August the capital was reached, and Mr. Ellis at once conducted to the house appointed for his residence, and here were to commence the negotiations upon the success of which the re-establishment of

missionary operations was to depend. None of the former missionaries have made us familiar with the capital and court of Madagascar ; like too many books of this class, they are conventional and narrow; we are, therefore, all the more indebted to Mr. Ellis for a most graphic and deeply interesting account of a city and manners all but unknown to Europeans.

Antananarivo, the city of a thousand towns,' must be a magnificent place, judging from the description and the frontispiece. It stands on a long, oval-shaped hill, a mile and a half or more in length, rising four or five hundred feet higher than the surrounding country, 6 seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. Near the tampombohitra, or crown of the hill, stands the palace, the largest and loftiest building in the place. It is about sixty feet high; the walls are surrounded by double verandahs one above the other; the roof is lofty and steep, with attic windows at three different elevations. On the centre of the top is a large gilt figure of an eagle with outspread wings. Adjoining the north east angle of the palace is the residence of the prince royal, her son, also surrounded by a golden eagle.'

6

With the Crown prince and princess Mr. Ellis had frequent and very pleasant intercourse, thereby confirming the somewhat vague reports that have reached this country respecting their intelligence and piety. As the most remarkable man in Madagascar, and one who must, in the course of events, should his life be spared, succeed the present queen, his mother, our readers will turn to Mr. Ellis's deeply interesting accounts of his lengthened conversations with eagerness. Our space forbids large quotation, and our judgment forbids mutilation. At length Mr. Ellis was introduced to her Majesty in her palace, and a truly palatial building it is. Mr. Ellis proposed to dress himself as an English gentleman for presentation, but a rich satin green and purple plaid dressing grown,' purchased in London as a present for one of the nobles, having been seen in his wardrobe, Mr. Ellis had to array himself in it, and throw back one side that the lining also might be seen.' Thus attired, he, with his sodra, or bearer, advanced to have audience of her Majesty. Crowds of people lined the road. We halted on reaching the post of the first guards outside the gates, where the officer who was with us announced our arrival. In a few minutes orders came to us to proceed. As we passed under this large wooden gateway, we took off our hats, advanced towards the palace across a square fifty or sixty yards wide, three sides of which were lined with troops four deep, with a band on the east side. The soldiers wore the white cloth round the waist, with white cross belts upon their brown skins, and were tall, athletic looking men. The com manding officer, a man beyond the middle age, but active and vigorous, wore a silk shawl wound like a loose turban on his head, a finely figured shirt, a handsome lamba or scarf round his waist as a sash, the fringed ends reaching to his ancles, and carried in his hand a bright and highly ornamented scimitar.' "The interpreters, officers who had been educated in England, kept me so promptly informed as to what I was to do, that I felt relieved from all appre