We were up early on Monday morning, the doctor to prepare paper for photographs, Mr Pillans and I to survey. He and I walked up a rounded scarped hill, about a mile to the north-east of the town. This was the only place we had seen in the neighbourhood which showed this rude kind of fortress, so common on the hills of Imèrina and the Bétsiléo country. It was a dull cloudy morning, and we could not get any distant points, but took the bearings of a few neighbouring villages. But we were greatly interested to find that the hill had certainly been the centre of volcanic action, was, in fact, an extinct crater, for large masses of lava were scattered all over the hill, from the base to the summit. We afterwards found, as we proceeded on our journey round its north-western slopes, that the crater was on that side, and that from it a stream of molten rock had poured down, spreading over a considerable surface of ground. After bidding our good friends farewell, although they much wished to keep us longer, we left at nine o’clock, still going northward. We crossed over the head of the large bay of the plain formed by the long promontory, passed a little cluster of villages called Mòraràno, and then ascended the ridge of hills, coming out on some very high ground which forms the western boundary or shore of this part of the plain. From it we had an extensive view over the great level surface, and could see the whole length of the Alaotra lake from north to south. There was a fine variety of outline in the eastern line of hills and mountains, and towards the north end of the plain there was a great opening between the hills, showing the valley through which the Màningòry river runs from the lake to the sea. We soon left the high ground and came down to the plain, skirting its edge, generally on low hills, and occasionally crossing great arms of it running westward. Several of these were very boggy and difficult to cross, with the most complicated and impracticable bridges we had yet seen, even in Antsihànaka; some of them were in three stages, one a steepish ascent, the middle span on the level, and another going down again into _water_, not on to dry land, and none boasting more than a slippery round pole as roadway. [Sidenote: A CURIOUS CUSTOM]