“Calling at a village one day for shelter from a sudden storm, we were most graciously received by a native, who was decidedly ‘the worse’ for drink. Wishing to be sociable, however, I said to my host, ‘Well, my friend, how many horns of rum can you drink before becoming drunk?’ (The Sihànaka use the horns of oxen instead of glasses, for drinking.) In a most friendly manner the man replied, ‘Well, I can drink three hornfuls at least’ (about one and a half quarts). ‘How much water would you mix with it?’ ‘Water! why, we never put water into the rum, that would make it insipid.’ Thereupon, turning to a little girl about six years old, the man said, ‘This is my daughter, a scholar in your mission school at Ambàndrika.’ ‘And does she also drink rum?’ ‘Of course, why not?’ He then told me that the baby, a year old, who was also present, was a son of his. ‘And does he also drink rum?’ ‘O dear, no! he is still only a fool.’ ‘Then he will drink it when he becomes wise?’ ‘Of course he will; we all drink it when we come to understand what is good.’” We encamped again in the open grassy plain, near two or three houses and a cattle-fold; and the following morning proceeded on our journey to the north-north-east. An hour and a half’s ride brought us to two considerable villages near an extensive rice-valley. Here we were surprised to see the fields dotted over with round stacks of rice with conical heads, much like those in an English farmyard. And we also found that here and all through Antsihànaka the rice is not transplanted, as in Imèrina, but after the ground has been trampled over by oxen the seed is sown broadcast, and the rice grows there until it is fit for cutting. After leaving these villages we began to mount a line of hills which forms the eastern boundary of the more level portion of the Ankay valley; and on reaching its summit we saw before us the vast green plain of Antsihànaka stretching away to the northward, level as a lake, with long lines of promontory jutting out into it from the north-west and south-east, and a few low rounded hills rising out of it like islands from a sea. In the far north-east the waters of the lake Alaotra gleamed in the sunshine. To the south and east of the plain we could see several large villages, but the chief town, Ambàtondrazàka, was hidden from view by an intervening line of hill. We crossed ridge after ridge and valley after valley, hoping each would prove the last. The path over one of these valleys, a mile and a half wide, was especially difficult; a narrow winding track amongst swamp, prickly bamboo, enormous papyrus and rushes, with here and there deep running streams, whose only bridge was a slippery round pole partly under water; so that we afterwards spoke of it as “the great dismal swamp!” But we met with others equally bad, if not worse, on our subsequent journeys round the plain, and the passage seemed not nearly so formidable on our return.