of the famous King Radama had been
sent to learn various useful trades. As his majesty had considered that
the first step towards civilising his subjects was to have them dressed,
he had requested that his son might learn the trade of a tailor. The
young prince, however, was said not to have taken very kindly to the
goose, and had soon returned.

Among other trees were guavas, bananas, mangoes, breadfruit palms, and
two or three fern-trees. The leaves of the latter are in shape like
those of the English fern, but of gigantic proportions, and grow on the
top of a stem thirty feet in height. The sugar-cane is the chief
cultivated production of the island on all the more level parts. The
fields are surrounded with pine-apple plants; the fruit is, therefore,
so abundant that the pines are sold for a penny a-piece. A small insect
had, however, lately attacked the sugar-canes, eating their way into
them and destroying them utterly. Though fresh canes had been
introduced, they had suffered in the same way. The proprietors, like
those of Madeira, had therefore lately taken to cultivating the mulberry
tree to feed silk-worms. The overseer entreated that we would remain at
the estate as long as we could. I had got leave to be away from the
ship for a week, and the doctor said that he need not return for some
days. Could I have forgotten my disappointment in not meeting with
Alfred and our grandfather, I should have considered those some of the
most delightful days in my existence. Yet we did little but converse
with Ricama and go about the estate, with short trips into some of the
wilder regions of the island, and examine and hear about the trees, and
shrubs, and fruits, and flowers, and animals, and insects, and reptiles
of the country.

On desiring to be shown our bed-rooms, on the first night of our
arrival, the overseer, to our surprise, conducted us out into the
garden. Here we had observed a dozen or more little pavilions, with
windows opening nearly all the way round, so that from whatever
direction the wind came, it could find a passage through them. Some
light gauze curtains, an iron bed-stead, a table and chair, with a tin
box, constituted the furniture of these temples dedicated to Morpheus.
The tin box was, I found, to hold my clothes; for though the ants and
other insects might not carry them off bodily during the night, they
were likely to inflict much mischief on them in a short space of time.

The