Our journey of six hours and three-quarters to-day was only broken by half-an-hour’s halt on a low hill to take observations; indeed there was no village, nor even a house, where we could have stayed, for we were travelling over a perfectly uninhabited country. After we left Mòraràno, about an hour north of Ampàrafàravòla, we saw not a single human habitation nor trace of cultivation, although there were numerous fertile and spacious valleys, until we arrived at Ambòhijànahàry. The only object we saw that gave any sign of man’s presence was a large herd of fine cattle. I was afterwards told of a curious custom formerly practised by the Sihànaka at the time of the circumcision. They used to choose one of the largest oxen to be found and sharpened his horns to a fine point; after two or three days’ continuous drinking, when they had got perfectly maddened with spirits and were ready for any foolhardy adventure, a party would rush out to attack this ox, but without any weapons. As the animal became infuriated, he of course defended himself by goring his enemies, many of whom he generally seriously hurt, and some occasionally killed outright, while the man who escaped without injury was considered as born under a lucky star, and was resorted to by numbers of people to give them charms to protect them from various kinds of calamity. Soon after four o’clock we reached Ambòhijànahàry, a large village of about a hundred houses, on rising ground, and approached by a long narrow passage between dense thickets of prickly pear. It is a poor dirty place, and the chapel the smallest one we had yet seen in the district, being only twenty-two feet by sixteen wide. However, it was clean and neatly matted, and after stopping up a door and a window on the windward side we put up the tent as a canopy for sleeping under, as the gables were exceedingly well ventilated. Then came speeches, beef, etc., etc., and replies as usual, _my_ oratorical efforts becoming very brief; my companions remarked that the flowery parts of my speeches in reply were gradually curtailed as we proceeded farther on our journey. To the north of the village is a lofty point, called Ankìtsika; it has a double cone-shaped outline—that is, a small cone upon a large truncated one—and is doubtless of volcanic origin. The word Ankìtsika means “at a cave,” and there is said to be a cave at the top, where, in former times, the people took refuge when their enemies, the Sàkalàva, made a raid upon them. The village which we had now come to was “our farthest north,” for from here we began to turn our faces homewards; and as we had now seen the largest villages in the province, I may as well say something here about the Sihànaka, and their occupations and means of subsistence.