learned prudence
before they had gone too far into the wilds. At a short distance from
Tamatave, in a field of sugar-cane, Leboeuf saw a beautiful bird, new to
him, which had a tuft of feathers on each side the beak--so Wilson
described it. He followed and secured the prize. The semi-civilised
natives with them paid no attention. But when, an hour later, surrounded
by the people of the village, he took out his bird to skin, there was a
sudden tumult. The women and children ran away screaming, the men rushed
for their weapons. But collectors were not unfamiliar beings, if
incomprehensible, so near the port. After some anxious moments, the
headmen or priests consented to take a heavy fine, and drove them from the
spot.

Their arrival at Malela had been announced, of course, and they found an
uproarious welcome. All the people of the neighbourhood were assembling
for a great feast. While their men built a hut of branches outside the
fortifications--for no house was unoccupied--they sat beneath the trees in
the central space. Such was the excitement that even white visitors
scarcely commanded notice. Chief after chief arrived, sitting crosswise in
an ornamented hammock--not lying--his folded arms resting on the bamboo by
which it was suspended. A train of spearmen pressed behind him. They
marched round the square, displaying their magnificence to the admiration
of the crowd, and dismounted at the Prince's door--if that was his
title--leaving their retainers outside. The mob of spearmen there numbered
hundreds, the common folk thousands, arrayed in their glossiest and
showiest lambas of silk or cotton. No small proportion of them were
beating tom-toms; others played on the native flutes and fiddles; all
shouted. The row was deafening. But doubtless it was a brilliant
spectacle.

One part of the vast square, however, remained empty. Beneath a fine tree
stood three posts firmly planted. They were nine or ten feet high, squared
and polished, each branching at the top into four limbs; tree trunks, in
fact, chosen for the regularity of their growth. In front was a very large
stone, unworked, standing several feet above the ground. The travellers
were familiar with these objects now. They recognised the curious idols of
the country and their altar. On each side of the overshadowing tree
barrels were ranged, one on tap, and another waiting its turn. This also
they recognised. However savage the inland population, however ignorant