In this brief sketch I cannot enter at length into the customs of these tribes. Their ancient warfare with the thin spear and round hide shield; their cylinder-bellows, and clay furnaces for smelting iron; their simple looms and spindles, have all been described and pictured by Mr. Ellis. With one thing however I was greatly struck: with their custom of giving over to the dead in their large stone tombs, the dresses, ornaments, furniture and possessions, which were favourites while they lived. And I remembered how the Malay tribes of Polynesia and the North American Indians have been accustomed to do the same. Another custom was to exhibit by rows of cooking stones, or of bullock skulls on poles, the extent to which the funeral feasts had been carried in honour of the dead, and the estimation in which they were held. The social life of the Capital at the beginning of this century, shows in a very striking way how poor, as compared with other nations, the civilisation of the Malagasy still was. Almost no European improvements had reached them, except the fire-arms which they had obtained from the coast, and which proved a powerful instrument in securing the consolidation of the kingdom. When Le Sage visited him, Radáma was a thorough Malagasy, in his dress, his superstitions, his house, his habits. He was dressed in a lamba, and sat on the floor, to eat with his hands out of a silver dish. His people were the same; and when they met Le Sage and gave him a royal reception as the English envoy, they were covered with silver ornaments, and shouted and danced and sang around the strangers with truly barbaric pomp and show. In mental grasp and in their longing for better things Radáma and his father were much beyond all this. Radáma was a gentleman in his manners, courteous, considerate, hospitable and kind. Both kings were wise in council, energetic in action, eloquent in speech: both were humane in purpose, though in despotic harshness they were often cruel; both were truthful, straightforward, and truly anxious to improve. They were fine illustrations of the weaknesses of Madagascar, as well as of its native strength and native virtues.