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PRESENT ADVISERS.

he told him he expected he should be put to death, and again asked various questions respecting the way of salvation. While they were conversing on the subject, the parties entered the house, and the tragical scene occurred which has been already described. While Radama lived, the queen had not been a mother; about a year afterwards her only child was born, and though, to disguise facts, he was called "the son of Radama," little doubt was entertained, though few dared to express their belief, that one reason of Andriamihaja's melancholy fate was to remove out of the way one who was generally regarded as too nearly related to the future heir to the throne. Inhuman policy might, perhaps, plead for such a measure; but it stamps with the basest heartlessness, the crime of a foul murder.

Andriamihaja was succeeded in office, and in the queen's regards, by two brothers-Rainiharo and Rainimaharo, and these have retained ever since the exercise of the principal authority and influence in her government; the first as commander-in-chief of the army, and the second as head officer of the queen's household. A third brother was made one of the principal judges, but has since died. To the despotic and cruel measures advised by these two favourites, the people attribute nearly all their present calamities, and to the same source may be attributed all the measures adopted for the suppression of Christianity and the restoration of the system of idolatry and superstition, that was gradually declining and becoming extinct, while knowledge and religion were 'permitted to spread, during the latter years of Radama, and the earlier part of the reign of Ranavalona.

After the recital of these facts, it seems superfluous to

add that the government of Madagascar is despotic. Not only is the divine right of the sovereign maintained, but the sovereign is thought actually to become divine. Accession to the throne is a kind of apotheosis. Honours are paid as to a divinity. "Our visible God," is the common appellation with which the sovereign is greeted in public by a servile multitude.

Occasionally, however, there is the semblance of an appeal to the public will, possibly a remnant of the customs of earlier times, when chieftains were more dependent on the voluntary adherence of their retainers, and a prelude of better days, yet to come, when the people shall be treated as rational beings, and when the welfare of subjects shall be regarded, at any rate, as one of the legitimate ends of government.

This appearance of an appeal to the public consists in calling together the whole of the inhabitants of a district, on any important business that may occur, when both the assembly itself and the sovereign's message to the assembly are called a kabary. The sanction of the assembly to any great measure has been usually demanded, and given after the measure has been explained and recommended by their respective leaders, or principal men. At present the will of the sovereign is announced, a standing army at her command is there to enforce it, the people shout, "Long live the Queen," and discussion is superseded; resistance would be death, for liberty has perished already.

Proportion of the country under the Queen's government-Standing army-Bourgeois-Extermination of the male population-Expeditions-Hova troops self-destroyed at IkongonaCrucifixion-Carnage-Near escape of two boys-Sale of captive children-Native letter describing a campaign—American whalers-Embassy to England-Barbarous crueltyCivil service to the government-Practice of district betting— Villages deserted-Modes of capital punishment-Queen's amusements-Power abused-Provisions scarce-Service to the Government by the women.

IT is difficult to say what proportion of Madagascar is actually under the government of Ranavalona. Radama's father, it is well known, commenced his career on a very limited scale, and at the time of his death, his dominions probably did not comprise above a sixth part of the island. Radama, as already intimated, enlarged his kingdom by conquest, till he obtained, it may be, more than half of the island. To secure these additions, and ultimately obtain the whole, have been the principal objects of the queen's reign hitherto. No claim to this universal sovereignty over the island, can be established on the ground of any former rights. The people claiming it on the behalf of the queen are called Hovas,— the race or tribe of natives inhabiting the province of Ankova. They assume to themselves the right of being

MILITARY EXPEDITIONS.

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the masters of the island, and are attempting to establish their claim by all the means they can command. Hence the attention of the Hovas has been chiefly directed to annual predatory excursions, or as they themselves loftily designate them, "military expeditions ;" and while these have devastated and depopulated many distant parts of the island, they have impoverished the province itself in which the capital is situated, and out of which the troops have been drawn for this destructive system. The province of Ankova has been drained of its youth to maintain, during the past ten years, a standing army, amounting to no less than from 20,000 to 30,000 men; and as large numbers of these have been, from various causes, annually cut off, new levies have been made, till the flower of the people has perished.

These warlike excursions, for the purpose of subduing the provinces that have not submitted to the Hovas, are attended with melancholy results and cruelties abhorrent to humanity. A division of the army, amounting to perhaps 2,500 or even 10,000 men, as the case may seem to require, is despatched about the close of the rainy season to some fated spot, with orders to return home by the commencement of the next rainy season, affording a campaign of about six months. Usually the army is attended by an equally large or larger number of bourgeois, that is to say, non-military persons, following the camp to assist in obtaining plunder, which they afterwards, at the close of the campaign, share in fixed proportions with the regular troops.

These expeditions are extremely fatal to all parties concerned. No commissariat existing in the Malagasy

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army, and no regular provision being made for the troops, many of the soldiers perish on the road from fatigue, famine, and disease. Many also are cut off by the inhabitants of the districts they are attempting to subjugate. Where they are successful, they depopulate and destroy. Whole districts are stripped of their inhabitants, and large tracts of country thrown utterly out of cultivation. The policy of the queen during the last seven years has been to exterminate all the male inhabitants of the conquered provinces capable of bearing arms, and to reduce all the rest to slavery. It may be estimated that no less than the fearful amount of 100,000 men have been murdered by the queen's troops since her accession. A few only of this number have been killed while actually fighting; the rest has consisted of those who had laid down their arms, promised submission, and committed themselves into the power of their deceitful but remorseless enemies. More than double that number, including women and children, has been captured and shared among the troops, or sold into domestic slavery through various parts of the island.

Painful as may be the recital of some of the details of this frightful subject, a complete view of the case cannot be formed without it.

Among some of the earliest expeditions sent out during the queen's reign, were those under the command of Rainiharo and Ramboasalama to the south, and of Ravalontsalama to the west, in 1831. Deceit and cruelty were practised by both parties. The former, on their way to their destination, came to a town in the Betsileo country, and determined to sacrifice it for the sake of