PREFACE, ix acknowledge my obligations to Sir W. J. Hooker and Dr, Lindley, for the useful suggestions which they kindly offered, in directing my attention, previous to my departure from England, to the botanical treasures which Madagascar was known to contain. Nor would I omit on this occasion to express my grateful sense of the hospitality and kindness of His Excellency Sir James Higginson, Governor of Mauritius at the time of my visit, to General Sutherland and General Hay, the late Mr. and Mrs. Kelsey, the Rev. J. Le Brun, and Messrs. l’Estrange, as well as that of other friends in Mauritius and at the Cape of Good Hope. The kindness evinced by these friends was not only gratifying to myself personally, as a stranger amongst them, but also highly encouraging as an expression of the deep interest felt in the welfare of the people to whom my visits were directed. W. E.