THIRTY YEARS IN MADAGASCAR OXFORD HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY [Illustration: THE REV. T. T. MATTHEWS.] THIRTY YEARS IN MADAGASCAR BY THE REV. T. T. MATTHEWS OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY WITH SIXTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND SKETCHES SECOND EDITION LONDON THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 4 BOUVERIE STREET AND 65 ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD 1904 PREFACE For the facts of the historical introduction I am mainly indebted to the writings of earlier writers and missionaries, and to unpublished native accounts of the earlier years of the mission and of the persecutions; for mine would have been almost impossible had it not been for the labours of those other workers in the same field, and for the native sources I have mentioned. Without such knowledge as this introduction gives no correct conception can be formed of Madagascar and the Malagasy, of the work done for and among them, the present condition and future prospects of the people, and of the future of Christian work in the island. I have been also indebted to a long course of reading on mission work at large, and on the work in Madagascar in particular. Much of this has become so mingled with my own thoughts that I cannot now possibly trace all the sources of it; but I have tried, as far as I could, to make acknowledgement of all the sources of information to which I have been indebted, and special acknowledgement of those more recent sources of information not alluded to in any other book on Madagascar. There are many things in this book derived from native sources that have not been utilized before. Believing that ‘a plain tale speeds best being plainly told,’ I have tried to tell my story in plain and pointed language, and I hope I have also been able to tell it graphically enough to make it interesting. My great difficulty has been condensation; very often paragraphs have had to be reduced to sentences, and chapters to paragraphs.