Radàma I was an extraordinary man. He has been called the ‘Peter the Great’ of Madagascar, and from some points of view perhaps he deserved the title. Some called him the ‘Noble Savage’; but he hardly deserved the epithet of ‘noble,’ for he was ruthless and cruel. At his first interview with Mr. Hastie and Mr. Jones he seems to have been so pleased with them that he invited them back to dine with him next day. They accordingly went to the palace, and while they were seated at table a slave bringing in a tureen stumbled and spilt a little soup on it. Radàma turned and looked at one of the officers who stood behind him, and the latter left the room. When Mr. Hastie and Mr. Jones quitted the presence of the king, they saw the headless body of the poor slave lying in the yard. He had had his head struck off for insulting the king by spilling soup on the table in the presence of the sovereign and his guests! On another occasion, in 1826, the king went down to the port of Tàmatàve to see a British man-of-war. While at Tàmatàve he sent a slave up to the capital with a message, giving him six days to go up and return. It is still regarded as a hard journey either to go up to the capital or to come down in six days. This poor slave must have run every hour of those nights and days; and yet because he did not return on the evening of the sixth day, but the morning of the seventh, he was killed! Terrible as such things are, they are mild compared with some of the enormities perpetrated in heathen countries. Radàma died in 1828, a victim to his own vices. Rabòdo, his wife, or rather one of his wives, for he had twelve, by the aid of a number of officials, who were most of them opposed to Christianity and to the changes introduced by Radàma I, had herself proclaimed queen as Rànavàlona I. She soon made her position secure by murdering all the lawful heirs to the throne. Radàma had designated Rakòtobè, his nephew, the eldest son of his eldest sister, as his successor. He was a young man of intelligence who had been trained by the missionaries in their schools. He and his father and mother were put to death, as were also a number of the more enlightened officials. Andrìamihàja, a young Malagasy nobleman who had been a very great favourite with the queen, and had been mainly instrumental in placing her on the throne, and who was believed to be the father of her child, the future Radàma II, soon fell under her displeasure and was murdered. He had been considerably attracted towards Christianity, and at the time when his executioners reached his house he was reading the recently translated New Testament.