256 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR, CHAP. X. long as it was supposed he could hear. This, I was informed, was in compliment to the visitor. Many of my former friends came to visit me in the course of the day; and, among other indications of welcome, I received a note from the governor, inviting me to a dinner to be given on the same day to a foreigner about to proceed to the capital. I was but ill prepared to appear at a public dinner, and should have preferred being omitted in the number of guests at this festive gathering; but as the governor seldom invited the foreigners at the port to meet him, and I might have been considered wanting in respect to the authorities of the place had I declined, particularly as the invitation came from two sources and was intended as a mark of respect, I gratefully accepted it as such. The two officers sent to conduct me to the place, walked on each side of me, one having a spear in his hand, the other a naked sword. On arriving at the house of the chief judge, where the company were assembled, the governor and other chief officers gave me a very cordial welcome. Having placed me next to himself at dinner, the governor, who had been long a pupil of the missionaries and speaks English to lerably well, conversed in the most friendly manner during the evening, and, when he proposed my health, wished me a pleasant journey to the capital. I was somewhat surprised to find my friend the harbour-master in the company, and to see him whom I had visited and left ill in bed in the morning dancing with a Frenchman in the evening. It would have been deemed disrespectful for any one to de part before the health of the queen had been drunk by the company; but as soon as this had been done I took my leave of the governor and his companions, and reached my residence about nine o’clock. Here I found many of my former friends, some of whom had come from a distance; and with them I remained in deeply interesting conversation until a