‘I was rather astonished, and said, “But I am not a teacher; I have had no training as a teacher.” Father said, “Neither am I; just buckle to and do your best”; so that is what I did! ‘There were twenty-six pupils when I took charge first, and we had two hundred and thirty when we left. Shortly after I took charge we had to leave for the coast owing to the French war, and the march of the French on the capital; and we were away three months. For nearly four years I superintended the school as a labour of love, taking up the work as something providentially laid upon me. I was splendidly assisted by my staff of Malagasy teachers, but most of all by E. Rabarijaona, the principal teacher, really the head master of the school, to whose untiring efforts we owe it, in the main, that the school has been for so long in such a satisfactory state. After the visit of the deputation, the foreign secretary and Alderman Evan Spicer, on their recommendation the Directors recognized my work in the school.’ [Illustration: THE LAST KABARY. THE QUEEN’S LAKE, ANTANANARIVO.] CHAPTER XV THE CONQUEST OF MADAGASCAR ‘The dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of violence.’--PSALM lxxiv. 20. The following extracts from the _Ten Years’ Review_ of the Madagascar Mission, 1891–1900, published by the London Missionary Society, will show the steps which led up to the conquest of the island by France. ‘A treaty concluded at Tàmatàve, on December 17, 1885, after the desultory Franco-Malagasy hostilities, which had continued at intervals for three years and a half, conceded certain rights and privileges to the government of the French Republic which no other foreign power enjoyed. Difficulties and disputes arose from time to time, however, on various points directly bearing on the treaty, and notably on the two following: the validity of the appendix which was added to the agreement, and the rights of the native government to issue exequaturs to the foreign consuls. As time wore on the tension between the two parties became more and more strained, until at last the French government, feeling the situation to be intolerable, determined to make one final and serious effort to bring the Malagasy government to submission by peaceful means, and, with this end in view, sent out in October, 1894, a plenipotentiary in the person of M. Le Myre de Vilers, who, a short time previously, had been resident-general of the island. But, as the queen and prime minister were unwilling to yield to his demands, his mission proved abortive, and he returned to France. The French government decided, therefore, to settle the matter once for all by force of arms.