Perhaps the starlit skies of the evenings of the summer months are the most beautiful of all the year. At this season some of the finest of the northern constellations are seen at the same time as several of the southerly ones. The Great Bear stretches over the northern sky; higher up is the Northern Crown; the Pleiades,[11] and Orion with his many brilliant neighbours, are overhead; the Southern Cross, with its conspicuous “pointers” in the Centaur, is high in the southern heavens; and the Magellan Clouds are clearly seen nearer the horizon; and all across the firmament is the Galaxy, or, as the Malagasy call it, the _èfi-taona_, “the division,” or “separation of the year.” And then, as the circling year revolves, the great serpentine curve of Scorpio appears, and Sirius, Capella, Canopus, and many another glorious lamp of heaven light up the midnight sky with their flashing radiance. [Sidenote: TEMPERATURE] The month of August, the closing one in this review of the year, is often the coldest month of all, cold, that is, for a country within the tropics. All through August the keen south-eastern trades generally blow strong, and although in sheltered places the afternoon sun may be quite warm, the mornings and evenings are very cold, and during the night the mercury will often descend to very near the freezing-point. The mornings are frequently misty; on some days there are constant showers of _èrika_ or drizzly rain, alternating with bright sunny days and clear skies; these latter seem the very perfection of weather, bracing and health-giving. But this cold weather often brings disease to the Malagasy, especially a kind of malarial fever, which sometimes attacks great numbers of them, and also brings affections of the throat and chest, to which many fall victims. At such times their thin cotton clothing seems ill adapted for protection against the climate. This circumstance has often struck me as showing how difficult it is to change the habits of a people; for centuries past the Hova have lived in this cool highland region, yet, until very lately, few comparatively have made much change in their dress, which was well enough adapted for the purely tropical region from which they originally came, but very unfitted for the cool air of the winter months of a country about five thousand feet above sea-level. [Illustration: AN ANCIENT VILLAGE GATEWAY A tall palanquin bearer is in front, showing by comparison the height of the gateway. A native wooden house with high-pitched _hèrana_ thatched roof is shown, and a group of natives] The great rice-plain to the west of the capital and all the broader valleys still lie fallow, although in various places extensive sheets of water show that irrigation is commencing. In the lesser valleys and at the edge of the larger rice-plains the landscape is enlivened by the bright green of the _kètsa_ grounds, where, as already described, the rice is sown broadcast before transplanting into the larger fields.