Our Sunday at a village on the plain was employed in our usual way, preaching there, and visiting other places. After speaking at a short service myself, I left my companion at midday to go to Iàritsèna, a village about five hundred feet above the level; but it really looked insignificant compared with the towering rocks beyond it. The grand and varied forms of the mountains all around this plain filled me with an exultant kind of delight. To the south were a crowd of mountain-tops, peak beyond peak, with the greatest variety of outline: one had the appearance of a colossal truncated spire; another had a jagged saw-like ridge, another was like a pyramid with huge steps, and another was like an enormous dome; but the varieties were endless, and, as I passed along, the combinations of the giant masses of bare rock changed every minute. Their summits were never long free from clouds, and the changing effects of sunlight and cloud shadow could only have been caught by the rapid use of a camera. The summits of many of the peaks must be at least three thousand feet above the plain. These “everlasting hills,” these “strong foundations of the earth,” recalled passages in the Psalms and the Prophets, speaking of Him whose “righteousness is like the great mountains.” At my little village congregation this afternoon, many of the girls and women wore a circular ornament suspended from their necks; this was formed of the end of a _conus_ shell ground down and generally with a red bead in the centre. This kind of decoration, called _félana_, is also worn by men among the Sàkalàva, but on the side of their temples, and by the Bàra people on the crown of their heads. [Sidenote: PARAKEETS] Until taking this journey I had not seen in any number the pretty little parakeet of which Madagascar possesses a peculiar species (_Psittacula madagascariensis_). But we noticed a large flock of these birds one day; and their light green plumage, with whitish breasts and greyish-white heads, render them rather conspicuous. They go in large flocks, often as many as a hundred together, and sometimes do considerable damage to the rice crops. The two sexes of this parakeet show great affection for each other, the pair sitting close together on their perch, from which habit they are often called love-birds.