The French expedition landed at Mojangà, on the north-west coast, in April; but it was October 1 before it entered the capital. It had been detained--so a French officer afterwards informed me--for six weeks near Mèvatanàna by a cablegram from Paris, instructing the General that he was not to enter Antanànarìvo before October 1, in order that the news of its fall might reach Paris by October 10, and so cause a sensation at the opening of the Chambers. The detention of the expedition among the swamps and fever fens of that part of the island cost the lives of hundreds of the poor French soldiers; but, as the above-mentioned French officer said, what did Paris politicians care for the lives of the poor French soldiers! The poor fellows had been set to the mad task of making a road from Mojangà to Antanànarìvo--some 400 miles--for the famous, or infamous, Lefebvre carts. To set these young fellows, fresh from the fair fields of France, to make a road through such a malarial country as North-West Madagascar, under a tropical sun, was nothing short of murder. The General had to attempt to carry out his instructions, and bravely tried to do so, until it proved impossible. The lives of some 6,000 French soldiers were sacrificed to the mad attempt, after which, of course, the brave General who had done his best had the blame thrown on him for their murder instead of on the man who had issued the order for the making of the road. A rush was made on Antanànarìvo with a flying column, and the capital was captured on the afternoon of September 30. This event caused great excitement in France--the people went into ecstasies over it. In reality nothing could have been easier. The General knew there would be no serious opposition; the traitors had arranged matters beforehand. The Malagasy troops, who ought to have been there to defend the capital, had been carefully removed, and taken away to meet the French along a route by which it was well known they would not come. There was slight skirmishing all day, but no serious fighting, and by two o’clock the French were in possession of the heights round Antanànarìvo, and the city was at the mercy of their guns. It had been decided, it seems, that if the Malagasy flag on the great palace was not lowered by half-past three fire was to be opened on it, with melinite shells. This would have laid the capital and neighbourhood in ruins, and might have sacrificed thousands of lives, as there were 10,000 barrels of gunpowder stored in the great palace!