There was a range of hills, about two miles to the west of our house, on the opposite side of an extensive rice valley. The people in the villages along the foot of that range suffered severely during the epidemic. Razàka and some of the deacons went to visit them when the epidemic was at its worst. They found the poor creatures in a miserable condition, five, six, and even eight lying in a single hut, prostrated with fever, and in several cases with the corpses of children which no one had been able to bury. And yet hardly one in ten could be persuaded at first to give up the native nostrums, and accept the medicines we had sent them. In some cases they even denied they were ill, lest my messengers should give them quinine, while some were so ill that they could hardly articulate. I asked Razàka the reason of such repugnance to the proper remedies, and he replied: ‘Simply ignorance, foolishness, and superstition.’ While some few refused the quinine as being too bitter, and others because they were afraid it might bewitch them, the majority declined to take it because it was too powerful! They said they knew very well that the white man’s medicine would cure them, for it was powerful; but it would not only cure them, it would also quite destroy all the virtue of their own medicine. If once they took white man’s medicine, nothing except white man’s medicine would ever cure them again. They had a white man and medicine now, they said, but as they did not know how long they might have either, they preferred keeping to their own _òdy_, on which they could fall back in their time of need. They did not seemingly take death into account. As we could not stand aside while these ignorant creatures committed suicide, and practically murdered their children in their folly, bottles of quinine mixture were prepared, and Razàka and the deacons were sent to the villagers and were told: ‘If they won’t take the medicine willingly, pour it down their throats.’ They did so, with the result that the poor creatures were cured, and fell fairly in love with the _òdi-tàzo_ (charm for the fever). They would not take it even for nothing that year; but, the following year, bought £11 worth of quinine during the four months of the fever season! The Malagasy regarded all disease as the result of witchcraft, and so all medicine was _fànafòdy_, that which takes off or removes the _òdy_ (witch charm). Our medicine was therefore regarded as the most powerful _òdy_, which not only cured the patient, but also conquered and destroyed the virtue of all other and weaker _òdy_. This reluctance is still met with in the darker parts of the island. The people came to call quinine _òdi-tàzo_, the charm for the fever; a wash for the eyes, _òdi-màso_, a charm for the eyes; and a cough mixture, _òdi-kòhaka_, a charm for the cough.