colour of yours. As for the smell, you will see that cured presently.” After having rubbed him abundantly with grease, the servants brought him a pretty large horn, and in it something scented, about the consistence of honey. It was plain that civet was a great part of the composition. The king went out at the door, Mr. Bruce supposes into another room, and there two men deluged him with pitchers of cold water. He then returned, and a slave anointed him with this sweet ointment; after which he sat down as completely dressed, being just going to his woman’s apartment where he was to sup. Mr. Bruce told him, he wondered why he did not use rose-water as in Abyssinia, Arabia, and Cairo. He said he had it often from Cairo, when the merchants arrived; but as it was now long since they came, his people could not make more, for the rose would not grow in his country, though the women made something like it of lemon-flower. Making a skip from Abyssinia to Madagascar we there find the “Royal state” a ludicrous blending of gingerbread splendour and magnificent muddle. By-the-by, things may have reformed here by this time, as the queen of whom this description treats is lately dead: let us hope that this is the case. Our business, however, is to recite the evidence of our witnesses--the witness in this case being the courageous and truthful Ida Pfieffer. “Towards four o’clock our bearers carried us to the palace. Over the door is fixed a great gilt eagle with extended wings. According to the rule here laid down by etiquette we stepped over the threshold first with the right foot, and observed the same ceremony on coming to a second gate leading to a great court-yard in front of the palace. Here we saw the queen sitting on a balcony on the first storey, and were directed to stand in a row in the court-yard opposite to her. Under the balcony stood some soldiers, who went through sundry evolutions, concluding with a very comic point of drill which consisted in suddenly poking up the right foot as though suddenly stung by a tarantula. “The queen was wrapped, according to the custom of the country, in a wide silk simbu and wore on her head a big golden crown. Though she sat in the shade a very large crimson umbrella was held up over head; this being, it appears, a point of regal state. “The queen is of rather dark complexion, and sturdily built, and although already seventy-five years of age she is, to the misfortune of her poor country, still hale and of active mind. At one time she is said to have been a great drunkard, but she has given up that fatal propensity some years ago. “To the right of the queen stood her son Prince Rakoto, and on the left her adopted son Prince Ramboasalama; behind her sat and stood sundry nephews and nieces and other relatives, male and female, and several grandees of the empire.