The original plan had been to banish all Europeans at once; but on the ground that they were useful in the work of education and civilization, he had secured their continuance for a time in the island, and had also aided and encouraged the work of the artisan missionaries. The queen sent to the missionaries to say that she did not mean to interfere with them or their work, as she was no less anxious than her late husband that the people should learn to be ‘wise and clever.’ The missionaries therefore thus continued to labour, and such great progress was made that they and their converts very soon got into trouble. Rànavàlona I was an able, unscrupulous woman. Her subjects regarded her with terror. She combined the worst vices of barbarism with the externals of semi-civilization. Brutal amusements and shameless licentiousness were conspicuous at her court. Her extravagance was great, yet her subjects condoned this, and even her acts of cruelty, on account of her extraordinary capacity for government. She had her rice picked by her maids of honour, grain by grain, so that no atom of quartz or stone might be found in it. If a single particle of grit reached Her Majesty’s tooth, it cost the offending maid of honour her life. ‘Among those who had gained a slight knowledge of the doctrines of Christianity before the missionaries were expelled in 1836 was Rainitsìandàvaka, in some respects a remarkable man. He was then a middle-aged man, of extra sanguine temperament. He did not belong to the congregation of Ambàtonakànga. He had never been baptized, but he had conversed with some of the church members and with some of the missionaries. After a time he began to make a stir in and around his own village in the north, teaching the people that Jesus Christ was to return to the earth, when all men would be blessed and perhaps never die; that there would be no more slavery, for all men would then be free; that there would be no more war, and that cannons, guns, and spears would be buried. Even spades might be buried then, for the earth would bring forth its fruits without labour. The idols, he said, were not divinities, but only guardians. ‘He and his followers formed themselves into a procession, and went up to the capital to tell the queen the glorious news. The queen appointed some of her officers to hear his story. They returned and reported it to Her Majesty. She sent back to ask him if she, the Queen of Madagascar, and the Mozambique slave would be equal in those days? “Yes,” he replied. When this was told the queen she ordered the prophet and his chief followers to be put into empty rice-pits, boiling water to be poured over them, and the pits to be covered up[1].’