We had to cross numerous little streams by rickety bridges of plank. From the level of the rice-fields the plain stretched northward like an immense green lake; the rotundity of the earth was as clearly seen from the perfect level as it is from the surface of the sea, for the distant low hills appeared like detached islands with nothing to connect their bases. Our course lay west by north-west, cutting diagonally across several of those promontories formed by the parallel lines of hills which run down each side of the Ankay valley. Every village of the Sihànaka has near its entrance a group of two or three tall straight trunks of trees fixed in the ground, varying from thirty to fifty feet in height; the top of these has the appearance of an enormous pair of horns, for the fork of a tree is fixed to the pole, and each branch is sharpened to a fine point. Besides these, there are generally half-a-dozen lower poles, on which are fixed a number of the skulls and horns of bullocks killed at the funeral of the people of whom these poles are the memorial. One thing struck us as curious: several of the higher poles had small tin trunks, generally painted oak colour, impaled on one point of the fork; and in several instances baskets and mats were also placed on a railing of wood close to the poles supporting the bullock horns. These various articles were the property of the deceased, and put near his grave with the hope of their being of some benefit to his spirit; or perhaps from the idea, common to most of the Malagasy tribes, of there being pollution attached to anything connected with the dead. In several cases, on the very highest point of the lofty poles, there was a small tin fixed, having a strong resemblance to those we import containing jam or preserved provisions.[17] As among many Eastern peoples, so in Madagascar, the horn is a symbol of power and protection; the native army was termed _tàndroky ny fanjakàna_—“horns of the kingdom.” [Sidenote: CATTLE]