So it comes about that the unlucky Malagasey soldier who can find no work, and is too far from his native village to receive assistance from his friends, is in danger of starvation. His leisure hours are spent in grubbing about the country in search of herbs and roots with which, and a little rice, he manages to keep life and soul together. The rice he throws into a pot filled with water, and after it has soaked for a time the rice-water serves him for a dinner; in the evening he banquets on the soddened grain remaining in the pot. But in war time, as soon as he is on an enemy’s territory, he makes up for his protracted season of “short commons;” he plunders right and left and literally lives upon the fat of the land; his long training has provided him with an excellent appetite; indeed, it is said that four able-bodied Malagaseys are equal to the task of consuming an entire ox in the space of four days, and at the termination of the feast to be so little incommoded as to be able to flee from pursuit with the nimbleness of deer-hounds. The Malagasey soldier at war, however, is only to be envied while his health remains unimpared, and while he is lucky enough to keep his carcase within a sound skin. His comrades are bound to take care of him in sickness--but how are they to do this when they themselves are pinched by poverty and are without even the common necessaries of life? It frequently happens on a march that the sick soldier’s companions will endeavour to rid themselves of him; not by killing him outright, but by the less charitable process of denying him food to eat or water to quench his thirst, till, preferring death to further torture, he begs to be laid under a tree and left, when his tender nurses readily yield to his solicitations, and he is left to die. Let us wind up our notice of Royalty and its attributes in Madagascar by a description of a court ball. The ball began soon after one o’clock in the day, and was not held in the apartments of the palace, but in front of the building, in the great fore-court in which we had been admitted to our audience. As on that former occasion, the queen sat on the balcony under the shade of her great parasol, and we were obliged to make the usual obeisances to her and to the tomb of King Radama. This time, however, we were not made to stand; comfortable arm-chairs were assigned to us. Gradually the ball company began to assemble; the guests comprised nobles of both sexes, officers and their wives, and the queen’s female singers and dancers. The nobles wore various costumes, and the officers appeared in European dress: all were obliged to make numerous obeisances. Those who appeared in costume had seats like ours given them; the rest squatted about as they liked, in groups on the ground.