We were really in a very serious dilemma; but there was no help for it. So Mr. Lambert looked out the costliest articles in all haste, and we threw pell-mell into our traveling trunks whatever we could cram in, and pressed a few of the least battered of the chests into the service; thus in a few hours we were ready to start. Fortunately for us, the officers, soldiers, and bearers did not interpret the queen’s commands so literally as we should have done. They set about their preparations deliberately enough, and the rest of the day passed without our seeing any thing more of them. We did not set out on our journey till the next morning; and this delay gave Mr. Lambert an opportunity of packing up many more of the returned presents.
July 18. With a truly heartfelt joy I turned my back upon a place where I had suffered so much, and in which I heard of nothing all day long but of poisonings and executions. This very morning, for example, a few hours before our departure, ten Christians were put to death, with the most frightful tortures. During their passage from the prison to the market-place, the soldiers continually thrust at them with their spears; and when they arrived at the place of execution, they were almost stoned to death before their tormentors mercifully cut off the victims’ heads. I am told that the poor creatures behaved with great fortitude, and continued to sing hymns till they died.
On our way through the city we had to pass the market-place, and encountered this terrible spectacle as a parting scene. Involuntarily the thought arose within me that the magnanimity of so cruel and cunning a woman could not be greatly depended on, and that perhaps the people might have received secret orders to fall upon us and stone us to death. But such was not the case. The natives came flocking round in crowds to see us, and many even accompanied us a long distance from curiosity, but no one offered to molest or insult us in any way.
Our progress from the capital to Tamatavé was one of the most disagreeable and toilsome journeys I had ever made; never, in all my various wanderings, had I endured any thing like such suffering. The queen had not dared to have us publicly executed, but we soon discovered her object to be that we should perish on our journey from the capital. Mr. Lambert and I were suffering severely from fever. It was very dangerous for us to stay long in the low-lying lands, where we were inhaling deleterious gases, and highly important that we should travel to Tamatavé as quickly as possible, and embark without delay for the Mauritius, in quest of a better climate, proper nursing, and, above all, of medical assistance; for there is no physician to be found at Tananariva, or elsewhere in Madagascar, where every person doctors himself as best he can. But we were not allowed to proceed as we wished. The queen had issued her orders in a very different spirit; and, instead of accomplishing the journey in eight days, the time usually occupied, we were made to linger fifty-three days, nearly eight weeks, on the road. In the most pestiferous regions we were left in wretched huts for one or two weeks at a time; and frequently, when we suffered from violent attacks of fever, our escort dragged us from our miserable couches, and we had to continue our journey whether the day was fine or rainy.
At Befora, one of the most unhealthy places on the whole line of march—a squalid little village, so entirely surrounded by morasses that it was impossible to advance fifty paces on firm ground—we were detained eighteen entire days. Mr. Lambert endeavored by all conceivable means to induce the commandant to accelerate our progress, and even, I believe, offered him a considerable sum of money, but all his efforts were vain. The queen’s orders had probably been so distinct and peremptory that the officer dared not evade them in any way.
The huts in which we were lodged were generally in such a wretched condition that they scarcely afforded shelter from the weather. Wind and rain came rushing in every direction through the broken roofs and the three half-decayed walls. To increase my sufferings, I had not even the necessary bedding; and my warm clothes, in which I might have wrapped myself at night, were stolen during our first day’s march. I had not, like my companions, two or three servants, who could take care of my things; unfortunately, I was master and servant both in one, and in my weak state I found it impossible to attend to any thing. Whenever we came to our resting-places I threw myself on my couch, and was often unable to rise for days together. And what a couch it was! a thin mat, a hard pillow, with my traveling cloak for a coverlet. One of the missionaries afterward gave me one of his own pillows. During the whole fifty-three days I did not change my clothes once, for my most earnest entreaties were powerless to move the commandant to assign me a separate place where I might dress and undress. We were thrust all together into the same hut, however small it might be. My sufferings were beyond description during the last three weeks, when I was unable even to raise myself from my bed and totter a few paces.
Every illness is trying; but the Madagascar fever is, perhaps, one of the most malignant of all diseases, and in my opinion it is far more formidable than the yellow fever or the cholera. In the two last-named diseases the patient’s sufferings are certainly more violent, but a few days decide the question of death or recovery, while, on the other hand, this horrible fever hangs about those it attacks month after month. Violent pains are felt in the lower parts of the body, frequent vomitings ensue, with total loss of appetite, and such weakness that the sufferer can hardly move hand or foot. At last a feeling of entire apathy supervenes, from which the sick person is unable to rouse himself by even the strongest exertion of his will. I, who had been accustomed from my earliest childhood to employment and activity, was now best pleased when I could lie stretched for days on my couch, sunk in a kind of trance, and wholly indifferent to what was going on around me. This apathy, moreover, is not peculiar to persons of my age when attacked by this illness, but is felt by the strongest men in the prime of life; and it continues to plague the patient, as do also the pains in the body, long after the fever itself has left him.
In the village of Eranomaro we met a French physician from the island of Bourbon who had made an agreement with the queen and some of the nobles to come to Tananariva for a few months every two years, bringing with him some necessary medicaments. Mr. Lambert and I wished to consult this gentleman on the subject of our fever, and to procure some medicine from him. I specially stood in need of his help, for I was in far worse health than Mr. Lambert, who only had attacks of fever once a fortnight, while in my case they recurred every third or fourth day. The commandant refused to allow us to go and see the physician, or to request him to visit us, declaring that he had been imperatively commanded by the queen herself not to let us hold communication with any one on our way, and least of all with a European. This strictness, as we afterward learned, was confined to ourselves, and was purposely intended to cut us off from any assistance. Mr. Laborde, who traveled a few days’ journey in the rear of our party, was much more leniently treated, and was allowed, on meeting the physician, to spend a whole evening in his company.
Though the journey from Tananariva to Tamatavé lasted long enough in all conscience, I had scant opportunity of seeing any thing of the manners and customs of the people, being hampered as much by my illness as by the strict surveillance under which we were placed. What cursory observations I could make showed me that the natives possess some very bad qualities. They are excessively idle, very frequently intoxicate themselves, chatter continually, and seem to be entirely destitute of natural modesty.
Thus our soldiers, who received neither provisions nor pay, and who often suffered the greatest privations, would, I think, have died of hunger rather than endeavor to earn any thing by any slight service. At first I pitied the poor fellows, and bought rice and sweet potatoes for them now and then, or made them a little present of money. When we came to the forest region, where beautiful insects and snails were to be found in abundance, I requested the men to procure me some specimens, offering to pay for them in rice or money. My promises were unheeded; not one of these people could I induce to comply. They would rather crouch in any corner and suffer hunger than subject themselves to the least exertion. This was not only the case among the soldiers; the natives generally—men, women, and children—were all alike lazy. During my first stay at Tamatavé, before visiting the capital, I had wished to take three or four persons into monthly pay, and send them out into the woods to collect specimens of insects, and offered four times the wages they usually receive, promising a farther reward whenever they brought me any thing really fine; but not a soul responded to my appeal. Just as vainly did I display to the women and children my store of handsome large glass beads, rings, bracelets, and similar treasures. They were delighted with the articles, and would have been glad to possess them, but only if I would give them away unconditionally. Never have I met with such thoroughly indolent people. In nearly every country I visited during my travels, and even among the quite uncivilized inhabitants of Borneo and Sumatra, the natives often helped me, of their own accord, when they saw me searching for shells and insects, or snails; and if I rewarded them with a trifling gift, they brought me more than I could carry away. I thus often made valuable collections; and here, in this unexplored country, where there must be an abundance of insect life, I unfortunately found it impossible to obtain any thing like a respectable show. The few specimens I possess I have been obliged, almost without exception, to collect for myself.