About twenty miles to the east of our route, although perfectly hidden by the intervening rugged country and lines of forest-covered hills, is a very strongly defended Tanàla town called Ikòngo, a place which maintained its independence of Hova domination until the French conquest. With considerable difficulty and some personal risk, my friend, Mr G. A. Shaw, managed to gain permission to visit this stronghold and introduce Christian teaching. The native chief, who became very friendly, wished to become closely allied to him by the custom of _fàto-drà_, or _fàti-drà_. This is a curious ceremony, in use among many Malagasy peoples, by which persons of different tribes or nationalities become bound to one another in the closest possible fashion. The name for it of _fàto-drà_—_i.e._ “bound by blood”—denotes that its object is to make those entering into the covenant to become as brothers, devoted to each other’s welfare, and ready to make any sacrifice for the other, since they thus become of one blood. The ceremony consists in taking a small quantity of blood from the breast or side of each contracting party; this is mixed with other ingredients, stirred up with a spear-point, and then a little of the strange mixture is swallowed by each of them. Imprecations are uttered against those who shall be guilty of violating the solemn engagement thus entered into. A few Europeans, who have overcome their natural disgust to the ceremonial, and to whom it has been a matter of great importance to keep on good terms with some powerful chief, have occasionally consented to make this covenant. Thus the celebrated French scientist, M. Alfred Grandidier, became a brother by blood with Zomèna, a chief of the south-western Tanòsy, in order to gain his good will and help in proceeding farther into the interior. But in his case the blood was not taken from the contracting parties, but from an ox sacrificed for the purpose; the ceremony is then called _famaké_. In this case, a pinch of salt, a little soot, a leaden ball, and a gold bead were put into the blood, which was mixed with water. Sometimes pulverised flint, earth and gunpowder are added to the mixture. In the case of Count Benyowski, who in 1770 was made king of a large tribe on the eastern coast, he and the principal chiefs sucked a little blood from each others’ breasts. The Hova formerly followed a similar custom, but with some variations; and so lately as 1897 a high French official made a somewhat similar covenant, with a principal chief in the extreme south of the island. The _fàto-drà_ has doubtless been observed by the various tribes in all parts of Madagascar, but there appears to have been a good deal of difference in the details of the ceremonial attending it. [Sidenote: BÉTSILÉO HOUSES]