296 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

had grabbed without a shadow of excuse, but time and South African civilisation will make it a bigger Cuba. Already her failures at government in that vast African island are grievous. Less than five years ago, to use a phrase I have employed elsewhere, property and life were ridiculously safe in that country. But then the Hovas and Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony ruled the land. Other changes predicted have come about there. The one native who showed honesty and courage in successfully opposing them at Tamatave the French subsequently executed. The Queen and Prime Minister were banished. Speaking English, the chief foreign language spoken, has been tabooed. Natives who are heard using it, or suspected of employing our mother tongue, are thrust into prison and kept there, pour encourager les autres, until they promise to discontinue speaking it. Association of natives with English or Americans renders them marked persons. The Protestant missions are regarded as centres of treason and enmity to French authority. Quickly, as foretold, has come about their reward (?) for noninterference politically in the early days of French intrigue. Had they insisted, with the British Government of a bygone day, in saving the island for the Malagasy, they would have succeeded. Our commerce has also had to suffer, for the French zustruct the natives that they must only buy articles of French manufacture. The native who purchases British or American goods soon discovers, from the severe handling he receives through the local officials, that he has made a serious mistake. Robbery and lawlessness