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At last Mamba reached Tamatave, footsore, worn, and weary, and went straight to the house of friend a native of wealth and importance in the town, and one whom he knew to be a Christian. From him he learned, to his great joy, that Mr Ellis had not yet left the place, and that he hoped to be permitted still to remain there for some time.
The population consists of four distinct races: the Kaffirs, who inhabit the south; the Negroes, who dwell in the west; the Arabs in the east; and in the interior the Malays, among whom the Hovas are the most numerous and the most civilized. Tamatave, when visited by Madame Pfeiffer looked like a poor but very large village, with between four and five thousand inhabitants.
April 3, 1901. It was not without regret, that found expression at a banquet given me on the eve preceding my departure, by Mr. Erlington, the German Consul at Tamatave, that I took my leave of Madagascar, when the flags of the officials of the French Residency and flags of all the foreign consuls were flying, honoring me with a kindly farewell.
This argument finally prevailed; and Madame Pfeiffer and the other Europeans, six in all, then in Antananarivo, were ordered to quit it immediately. They were only too thankful to escape with their lives, and within an hour were on their way to Tamatave, escorted by seventy Malagasy soldiers.
"Why, Mamba! I thought you had gone to Tamatave?" said Mark, shaking hands heartily with him. "Yis yis I hoed," said Mamba, and then endeavoured to tell something of his doings in English; but his knowledge of that language was so very imperfect that they could make nothing of it.
In the course of that day the missionary inquired after his visitor, wishing to have further converse with him, but the Christians of Tamatave told him that Mamba had started off, almost immediately after quitting him, on his long return journey to Betsilio-land doubtless "rejoicing as one that findeth great spoil." Dust was not allowed to accumulate on the Bibles of Madagascar in those days!
This, my appointment as Consul to Tamatave, severs a decade's connection as "Secretary of the Republican State Central Committee," and especially with its Chairman, Mr. Henry Cooper, who, indefatigable as a worker, genial, but positive in his convictions, has managed the machinery of the party with but little friction.
They had good cause to congratulate themselves on their escape, for on the very morning of their departure ten Christians had been put to death with the most terrible tortures. The journey to Tamatave was not without its dangers and difficulties, and Madame Pfeiffer, who had been attacked with fever, suffered severely.
On the 25th of April 1857 Madame Pfeiffer sailed for Madagascar, and after a six-days' voyage reached the harbour of Tamatave. Madagascar, the reader may be reminded, is, next to Borneo, the largest island in the world. It is separated from the African mainland by the Mozambique Channel, only seventy-five miles wide.
"Where did that happen?" asked the boatman, when the other had briefly stated the fact for the passage was too short to permit of a story being told. "In the Betsilio country." "That's a long way off." "Yes, a long way. I left my old mother there. I'm going to Tamatave to buy her a present.
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