The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1883-08-30

Readers of the missionary memoirs
will remember that cruel queen of
Madagascar. whose name the writers
OF those books seemed to long to print
in blacker ink than any to be found
in an ordinary office. She is described
by recent writer as a kind of Malay
Elizabeth, with all the masculine res
olution and more than all the ruthless
energy of her English prototype.
Bigotedly attached to the customs
and religion of her own people, she
viewed with mingled alarm and anger
the spread of foreign influence conse-
quent upon her late husbands trea-
ties with the English, and his system
of sending every year number of the
young HovaS to he trained as Seamen
on board the British shipS of war.
These seeds of hostility soon bore ter
rible fruit. Her prohibition Of the
Christian faith in 1885, and the ter
rife persecution by which she after
ward stroye to eXtirpate it outright.
have been already detailed. From
first to last the stern woman never
WaYered in her purpose. Her final
edict against the new religion is
marked by 4 terrible straightfor-
wardness thoroughly characteristic of
its author; "Whosoever changeth
these our observances, them will / kill,
though they be the half of my people,
saith Ranavalomanjaka." But all
her efforts were vain. Not one of the
martyrs could be forced to yield, and
their courage and constancy produced
an abiding impression upon the peo-
pie. more especially among the friends
and relatives of the condemned. I'm.
like most barbarous races, the Hovas
hold their aged parents and relations
in great reverence, and one of their
most cherished customs is the occa-
slOnal gift of piece of money to the
mother of q family by her children,
with the words "Fofon damosina,"
LITERALLY fragrance of the back"), in
allusion to the days when the mothers
shoulder was the child's habitual
resting-place, Those whose parents
and relatives had been put to death
were only the more confirmed in
their resistance to the tyranny of the
government, and Christianity con-
tinued to spread until it invaded the
queens own household, her son,
Prince Ramona, being one of the
stanchest proselytes. His influence
and the manifest ill-success of the
crusade against the praying people"
combined to check the persecution,
which gradually died away.
But all this while the iron-hearted
queen was unfolding the national
honor abroad with the same infieXible
irmness with which she crushed the
national spirit at home. French am
bition, though quelled for the time
being, was not extinct. In 1871
ly successful rebellion among the
Sakalavas of the west coast to obtain
from the latter the formal cession"
that might mean in the
case of men who could neither read
nor wrlte-of tho adjacent islet of
Nossive, which has served her as Il
base for her recent attack on Ma
junga. Three years later more Seri-
Gus ground of quarrel arose, the euro
pean residents at Tamatave (the chief
port of Madagasear), declaring them
selves aggrieved by the manner In
which the native laws applied to
them. and the Hovas complaining of
the removal of natives from the island
in defiance OF existing ordinances to
the contrary. The events which fol-
lowed were in many points \ singular
prophecy of those which have just oc-
CARED in the same place. Two French
ships-aided to the shame and sorrow
OF England by British man of-w ar
attacked and burned TalAatave,
and, landing small force, assaulted
the native fort, But the brave Malays
stood their ground like men, and re-
pulsed their assailants with a loss of
thirteen killed, whose skulls, fixed on
poles around the fort, were for many
a day the scott and by-word OF their
enemies.
At this crisis the great queen acted
with all her Wonted vigGF. She at
once forbade the expectation OF native
commodities. and proclaimed that no
t0feigneT WOUl,l hr allowed 10 trade
with her people till fn!i com ,Ation
had been made for tht. Tam itiVc out
ragr. This c..lnh!er ial blockade was
mai 1tained for nearly eight
years, till at length, in 1853, the Maui
ritius merchants, as the most inter-
ested parties in the matter, raised Il
Joint subscription of $4,000 to cover
the damages, on the payment of
which the embargo was at once taken
off. In 1861 the queen died at the age
of seventy-three, leaving behind her
a name which, though stained with
many cruelties, has no equal in Mala-
gassa history save that of Radama
himself. To the very last she main
tanned that unbending firmness which
had always been her leading character
istic. THE queens face,' writes an
English missionary who visited her a
few years before her death, els round,
full, and not uncomely, but marked
with a look of exceeding resolution.
Her lips are thin and firmly set, her
eyes small, but very bright and pierre
ing. Her figure, though not tall, is
large and strongly made, and in spite
Of her great age, is still as upright as
ouor0