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224 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. CHAP. VIII. in a chasm between two rocks, leaving ber there to die; and when bis fellow-servants bad expostulated with him in vain, they brought the poor woman away, and, at the time of our visit, she was still living with her son and his wife on the farm. The horse-sickness was at this time so severe in the neigh bourhood, that we left our horses at Orange Grove, and pro ceeded with oxen to Somerset, now a thriving village, but formerly a government farm, for many years under the charge of Mr. Hart, the father of our host at Orange Grove. Here I passed the Sunday with Mr. Gregrowsky, the missionary, and his family; and was pleased with the earnestness of some of the people who applied for additional means for the education of their children. Before leaving, I also visited the beautiful and extensive farm of Glen Avon, about four miles from Somerset, where I was hospitably entertained by Mr. Hart, sen., and his daughter Mrs. Stretch. I felt great pleasure in n ing under the roof of this venerable patriarch, who had been sixty years in the colony, and whose name I had long held in high esteem on account of the kindness he had shown to two justly valued friends—one of them Mr. Williams, the devoted missionary to the Caffres, whom I had known in England, and whose name, although he has been dead six and thirty years, is still cherished with grateful affection by the people amongst whom he laboured. The widow of this de voted man, suddenly and unexpectedly left alone with two helpless infants, amongst what were then designated a savage and murderous people, had herself to instruct them how to make a rude coffin and to dig a solitary grave for the remains of her departed husband; and it was in this season of lone liness and trial, that she found a prompt and faithful friend in Mr. Hart. Hearing of her calamity, he hastened to the spot at the peril of his own life, endeavouring, with words of kindness, to soothe her anguish, and finally conveying herself and her children, with sympathy and tenderness, from the