THE "CHASSEURS." 749 battalions were obtained from the army in France for the Madagascar campaign, by following the same plan that was adopted for the BritishAshanti expeditionof this same year. A new line regiment of three battalions ( i,800 men) was organised out of detachments from the line regiments in garrison in France. Officers and men were selected from those who volunthirteen battalions of infantry. The artillerysupplied seven mountain batteries. It was not expected that there would be much use for cavalry*, so that arm was represented only by a squadronof the Chasseurs d'Afrique, fresh from frontier campaigning in Algeria. There was a strong contingent of engineers. The whole forcenumbered15,000men, most of them picked THE FRENCH ADVANCE ON ANTANANARIVO.

Notb.— The places marked thus (h)are fortified villages on the roadfrom Mevatanana tothe capital.

for the work they had to do. The command was given to General Duchesne, who had had some experience of half-savage warfare in the hill countryof Formosa, during the French war with China, and whose latest peace service in Europe had been on the Alpine frontier of France.

On the other side, the Hovas were making no use of the precious respite given to them by the blunders anddelays of theFrench administration.

They seem to have been chiefly engaged in teered for the service, and the new regiment wasknown as the 200th. Onthe sameprinciple, anewbattalion ofRifles or Chasseurs (the 40th) was made up of volunteers from the recently organisedAlpine Chasseurs. They served their first campaign in the hill country of Madagascar, after training for warfare amongthe glaciers and passes of the Alps. The Marines, the Foreign Legion, the Turcos from Algeria, and the Senegalese' tirailleurs from West Africa, supplied other corps to the expedition. In all there were