The treatment of the matter in these public services required care: and the members of the ruling family had many fears respecting it. The Queen is a Christian: the principal nobles are Christians: they could not but admire with us the principle and the faith of the sufferers whose death that day brought to mind. But the persecutor, through whose stern attachment to the national idols the martyrs had lost their lives, was the present Queen’s aunt, and was her predecessor on a throne, whose edicts have always been regarded by the Malagasy with profound respect. It could not but be painful to the Queen to hear that anything hard or harsh was spoken of her aunt, even on so sacred a matter as this. We felt the difficulty: and from the high regard in which the Queen and those around her are held, it was agreed that scarcely any reference should be made to the chief mover in the sorrows of the past: but that we should dwell prominently if not exclusively upon the martyrs themselves. The course pursued was privately reported to the authorities by some who were present at the services: and evidently gave them satisfaction. So great is the revolution in the nation, so completely has the rule of the idols and diviners passed away, that the injustice and the mistakes of the wrongdoers may well be forgotten and forgiven. As if to teach us this lesson, during the last few years, the rocks over which the sufferers were thrown, have been thickly overgrown with dense masses of the prickly pear cactus. And while their ashes rest in peace under the shadow of the Memorial Church, and the grass is green upon their grave, myriads of scarlet flowers bloom above the rocks once stained with their blood, and cover them with a mantle of beauty fresh from the hand of God. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VI. THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE OF MADAGASCAR.