WINTER: MAY, JUNE, JULY AND AUGUST.—As already mentioned in the introductory sentences of the previous chapter, winter in central Madagascar is very different from winter in England. We have no snow, nor is there any native word for it, for even the highest peaks of Ankàratra are too low for snow to fall on them; we never see ice (although adventurous foreigners have once or twice seen a thin film of it on pools on the highest hillsides); hoar-frost, however, is not uncommon, and occasionally the leaves of some species of vegetables, as well as those of the banana, turn black with the keen night air. And since there is no rain during our Imèrina winter, the paths are dry, and it is the best time for making long journeys, especially as there is little to be feared from fever when going about at this season of the year. Winter is therefore a pleasant time; the skies are generally clear, the air is fresh and invigorating, and to the cool and bracing temperature of the winter months is doubtless largely due the health and strength which many Europeans enjoy for years together in the central provinces of Madagascar. The long period without rain at this season naturally dries up the grass, and the hills and downs become parched and brown. _Maìntàny_—_i.e._ “the earth is dry”—is one of the native names for this season, and it is very appropriate to the condition of things in general. The rice-fields lie fallow, affording a scanty supply of grass for the cattle; and many short cuts can be made across them in various directions, for the beaten track over embankments, great and small, may be safely left for the dry and level plain. [Sidenote: ANCIENT TOWNS] In travelling about Imèrina, and indeed in the southern central provinces as well, one cannot help noticing the evidences of ancient towns and villages on the summits of a large number of the high hills. These are not picturesque ruins, or remains of buildings, but are the deep fosses cut in the hard red soil, often three or four, one within the other, by which these old villages were defended. These show very conspicuously from a great distance, and are from ten to twenty feet deep; and as they are often of considerable extent they must have required an immense amount of labour to excavate. These elaborate fortifications are memorials of the “feudal period” in central Madagascar, when almost every village had its petty chief or _mpanjàka_, and when guns and gunpowder were still unknown. These old places are now mostly abandoned for more convenient positions in the plains or on the low rising grounds; and the fosses or _hàdy_ are often capital hunting-grounds for ferns and other wild plants. [Sidenote: HOVA TOMBS]