cnAP. v. VISIT TO A SICK CHIEF. 117 were taken to the custom house and afterwards deposited in a large new house belonging to M. Provint, which stood in a healthy part of the settlement, and was kindly granted by the owner for my use. The officers at the custom house ex amined my things very carefully, and the number of bottles containing photographic chemicals as well as a small case of medicine included in my luggage induced them to regard me as a doctor, and one of them asked if I had anything to cure a headache. On the following day I took possession of my house in Tamatave, and while engaged in unpacking and arranging my luggage a messenger came from a neighbouring chief to ask for some medicine. I went forthwith to see him, and then sent him a small quantity of such medicine as appeared to me most suitable. I was much struck with the novel aspect of social life which my visit to the sick chief afforded. I found him not in the large substantial house, with doors and windows, matted walls, and boarded floor, which he usually occupied, but in a low hut in the same enclosure. This I entered by a doorway near the farthest end. After passing through the outer doorway I entered a room about twenty feet long and twelve feet wide, the walls being about five feet high, and closed all round without window or door. About the centre of this room was a sort of raised hearth edged round with stones, on which a wood fire was burning. The room was dimly lighted by a lamp of native structure fixed in the sand of the hearth. The lamp itself was a curiosity, consisting of an iron rod two or three feet long, sharpened to a point at one end, and having a cup with a hook above it at the other. The sharp end of the rod was fixed in the sand. The cup contained melted fat. In this was a lighted wick of twisted cotton, and above the flame of the wick a piece of bullock’s fat was fixed on the hook, which, as it melted in the flame replenished the cup below. I 3