190 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. CHAP. VII. in their anxiety about the time disturbed me more than once. About four we arose, and after spending a short time together in that communion of feeling which had formed the basis of our intercourse, and receiving from my friends the latest ex pression of their affectionate feeling, and the kind wishes which they had written down for me on the margin of a piece of newspaper after I had lain down to rest, we set out by the starlight of early morning towards the beach. The friendly chief who had sent me my bed for the night I found waiting under his verandah. He told me a canoe was ready for me on the shore, and he then bade me farewell. Before we were well out of his compound a man came to say that the ship was getting under way. We hastened on; the moon was shining brightly, and only a faint line of light indicated the approach of the dawn. When at the water’s edge, I took a hurried leave of my friends, and stepping into the little light canoe, was soon on my way to the ship. Hats and hands were waved as long as they could be seen, but I was soon unable to distinguish anything beyond the white lambas covering the figures still standing on the beach. On reaching the “ Castro,” I found the anchor nearly up. The wind was fair, so that before six we were out of the har bour, the white surf rolling on the reefs behind us, and a light breeze from the land wafting us over the ocean. From the poop of our vessel I stood and gazed with strongly ex cited feelings on the peopled shore, where the friends I had left still lingered, and between whom in their comparatively isolated solitude, and the deeply interested friends in my own remote native land, I had been as the wire of the telegraph, the medium of communicating thoughts and wishes of hal lowed sympathy and kindness. And this, without reference to other advantages that may result from my visit, I felt to be a more than ample compensation for any trifling inconve nience the voyage had occasioned. I had often before, espe-