Early in the month of June she arrived in London, where she remained for a few weeks.  Thence she repaired to Berlin.

Her strength was now declining day by day, though at first she seemed to regard her illness as only temporary, and against the increasing physical weakness her mind struggled with its usual activity.  About September, she evinced a keen anxiety to behold her home once more,—­evidently having arrived at a conviction that her end was near.  She was carefully conveyed to Vienna, and received into the house of her brother, Charles Reyer; where, at first, the influence of her native air had an invigorating effect.  This gave way after a week or two, and her illness returned with augmented force.  During the last days of her life, opiates were administered to relieve her sufferings; and in the night between the 27th and 28th of October she passed away peacefully, and apparently without pain,—­leaving behind her the memory of a woman of matchless intrepidity, surprising energy, and heroic fixity of purpose.

NOTES.

{105} Since Madame Pfeiffer’s time this mode of self-torture has been prohibited by the British Government.

{197} That is, the “City of a Thousand Towns.”

{204} We give Madame Pfeiffer’s account, as an illustration of the old ways of Madagascar society.  But the poison-ordeal has of late been abandoned, owing to Christian influence.