Madagascar: The Great Island
Reputed to be a place of enormous wealth and during the seventeenth century known as “the golden isle”, Madagascar, before it achieved its independence, was long the subject of contention between French and British empire-builders.
Madagascar, the home of the gentle lemur, is not only a naturalist’s paradise; though for long periods it has been cut off from the main stream of events, it has had an extremely interesting history. Discovered on St. Lawrence’s Day 1500 by the Portuguese navigator Diego Diaz, and originally named after the saint Insula S. Laurentii, the “great island” off the south-east coast of Africa soon gained the reputation of being a fabulously wealthy place.
During the seventeenth century, both Britain and France made attempts to colonize it. Prince Rupert was to have led the British expedition; and, in his poem “Madagascar”, Sir William Davenant already saw him as “the first true monarch of the golden isle”. But in 1644 the expedition started without the Prince; and it had a disastrous end, of a hundred and forty colonists a bare handful returning alive, and with no gold or pearls or fragrant ambergris.
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