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CUAP. II. ANNOYANCES ON BOARD SHIP. 37 making inquiries respecting several of the missionaries who had formerly resided in Madagascar, and telling me he had been the scholar of one of them, took my hand, and, pressing it between both his own, expressed in French his pleasure in seeing me, and uttered, in the most earnest and deliberate manner, his fervent desire that the blessing of God might rest upon me. After he had left us, I asked my host if he knew who or what he was. He said he did not, that he was from the interior, and had only recently come to Tamatave. When on shore, we were welcomed to the hospitality of M. Provint, a French merchant, and also visited M. De Lastelle, who came to Tamatave for a few days while we were there. The heavy rains, however, occasionally detained us on hoard our vessel whole days together; and then our imprison ment was irksome in the extreme. Our cabin was small, not more than nine or ten feet long, seven feet wide, exclusive of our berths, each about eighteen inches more, and seven feet high, being half above and half below the deck. There was neither skylight nor window, but small apertures, with sliding covers on the sides, to admit air. All the light entered by the door, so that when it rained, and the slides were closed, and the door shut, we were in darkness and almost stifled. Our captain and mate were inveterate smokers, and the fumes of their tobacco, as they lay in their berths smoking, some times before they rose in the morning and after they lay down at night, as well as at other times, were to Mr. Cameron and myself, who could neither of us smoke, unpleasant in the extreme. Our small cabin, eating-room, sitting-room, smoking- room, drinking-room for all, was'anything but clean. There was a rickety table fixed in the middle, and on this tobacco was cut up for smoking and the ashes of the pipe knocked out; the wine, rum, coffee, or soup spilled on it; the melted wax also dropped upon it, in which the candle was fixed upright when a candle was needed; while the oil