The roadstead before Tamatave offers a good anchorage, except when the wind is from the north or east.  Several species of pandanus and some tall cocoa-nut trees gave a tropical character to the scenery.  Soon after anchoring, a large but rather clumsy canoe came alongside, with an officer who spoke a little English, and said he was the harbour-master, and a number of attendants.  They wore neatly plaited straw hats, white shirts bound round the loins with cloths, and large white scarfs thrown gracefully over the shoulders like the Scotch plaid.  The harbour-master entered in a book the name of the ship and other particulars, and we then accompanied him to his house on shore--that is, the captain, the doctor, and Jerry and I.  It was built of wood, nearly fifty feet long and twenty-five high, a verandah running all round; a door in the centre, and windows on either side; the floor of the veranda well planked, so as to form an outer apartment.  The whole was thatched with the leaves of the traveller's-tree.  The walls were covered with tofia, or native cloth, and the floor with a large fine mat.  A well-made bedstead stood in one corner with sleeping mats on it, and in the centre a table covered with a white cloth.  In different parts of the room were chairs and ottomans covered with mats; cooking utensils, arms, machines for making mats, bags of rice, and other articles for consumption, were arranged against the sides of the room.  It was a fair specimen of a native house, and in the essentials showed a considerable advancement in civilisation and notions of comfort, as it was admirably adapted to the climate.