The whole population of Madagascar is divided into eleven castes. The eleventh caste consists of the regal personage; the tenth of the descendants of the royal family. In this caste alone brothers and sisters may intermarry, probably in order to prevent there being too many scions of the blood royal. The six following castes, from the ninth to the fourth inclusive, comprise the nobles of higher and lower rank; the people belong to the third caste, the “white” slaves to the second—a class including all who were once free, and have been sold as prisoners of war or as a punishment for crimes; and the first, or lowest caste, consists of the “black” slaves, namely, those who have been born in that condition of life.
A noble may take a wife not only out of his own caste, but out of the two immediately below him, but never from a higher one. On no account may he marry a slave-woman; and the law does not even allow any other kind of connection between a noble and a slave. In this respect, by the way, Madagascar might serve as a model to those countries governed by white men where slavery exists; for the morality of the entire community would be greatly benefited if this custom were observed. This law was in former times very stringently enforced, and on the discovery of a connection of the kind alluded to the noble was sold as a slave, and the slave-woman beheaded. If the woman in the case was a noble and the man a slave, both were beheaded. In these latter days, however, this strictness has been much relaxed. Indeed, in the universally low state of morality prevailing here at the present time, the greater number of the nobles and officials would have to lose their heads or their freedom; and what would then become of the court? Some amount of good is, however, still effected by the law; for when such an affair between a nobleman and his slave is suspected, he is compelled to set her free to escape punishment.
As polygamy has been introduced here, every man may have as many wives as he pleases; but among the nobles only a certain number of these women have a claim to the actual title of wife, and the first wife always keeps precedence over those taken subsequently. She alone lives in her husband’s house, and great respect is shown to her; her children, too, have privileges beyond those of the other wives. The other children, like the subsequent wives, live in little separate houses. The king may take twelve lawful wives, but they must be all members of the highest families. The ruling queen and her sisters and daughters have the right of sending away their husbands and taking new ones as often as they choose so to do.
Our breakfast was just over, and I had retired to my room, when Mr. Lambert came to announce that the queen had summoned us to an introduction or audience. This honor is generally accorded to strangers eight or ten days after their arrival; but her majesty seemed desirous of showing distinction to Mr. Lambert above all Europeans who had ever visited her court, and so, not later than the fourth day, we had the happiness of appearing before that exalted personage.
All these tokens of honor and consideration astonished Mr. Lambert not a little. He had already told me in the Mauritius that he had very many good friends at the queen’s court, and dangerous enemies also, who might have taken advantage of his absence to slander him in the vilest manner, not only in her eyes, but in Prince Rakoto’s too. But a circumstance that Mr. Lambert now confided to me for the first time was, that attempts had been made in another quarter to prejudice the queen against him, and that he expected not exactly to be coldly received, but to be looked upon with some degree of suspicion.
And now, for the first time, I got an insight into Mr. Lambert’s real plans and intentions, which were certainly not calculated to prepossess the queen in his favor.
When Mr. Lambert came to Tananariva for the first time in the year 1855, and saw with what cruelty the queen ruled, a wish arose in his mind to free the unhappy people from this tyrant. He succeeded in gaining the friendship of Prince Rakoto, who was also deeply moved by the people’s misery, and who at that period told Mr. Lambert that he cared not who ruled over the nation so long as the government was good and just. They soon came to an understanding, and Mr. Lambert made a treaty with Prince Rakoto, and conceived the design of seeking help from either the French or English government.
In the year 1856 he went to Paris, and in a private interview with the emperor he made him acquainted with the boundless misery of the people of Madagascar, and tried to induce the French autocrat to come to the assistance of that unhappy country. But it is difficult to enlist the sympathy of a European government where philanthropy and not state interest is in question. This audience had no result, and an interview of Mr. Lambert with the English minister, Lord Clarendon, also led to nothing; nay, instead of any advantage accruing from this step, it was productive of difficulty and discomfiture, for every thing Mr. Lambert had done in reference to Madagascar came to the ears of a great missionary society in England. The society feared that, in the event of the French occupation of the island, the Roman Catholic religion might be the only form of worship introduced and licensed, which, in their opinion, would be, of course, a much greater misfortune for the inhabitants than the mere fact of their being ruled by an utterly cruel woman, like Queen Ranavola, who plays with human lives and sacrifices them at her pleasure! The society accordingly formed the notable resolution of opposing Mr. Lambert in every possible way, and immediately dispatched a chosen member, a missionary, to Tananariva to acquaint the queen with Mr. Lambert’s design against her.
To judge from what occurred, as it was reported to me, it would appear that even an English missionary is capable of abandoning truth and sincerity in order to effect a purpose, and, upon occasion, to employ arts of a Jesuitical kind.
In the Mauritius, where the missionary made some stay before proceeding to Madagascar, he ventured to assert that Queen Ranavola had summoned him to Madagascar!