On Saturday morning I wished Mr Plant good-bye and set off, leaving him at the village, which he was to make his head-quarters for some time while collecting natural history specimens in the forest. The road was not nearly so difficult as on the previous day, so that I had no need to alight from the palanquin all the way to Ampàsimpòtsy, where I stayed to breakfast. The hills were much more moderate in height, with a good deal of open clearing, although the forest still continued on either hand, but not in those dense masses of wood through which we had passed the last three or four days. Leaving our halting-place at noon, we gradually got clear of the woods, and early in the afternoon ascended a very high hill, from which we could see a great distance both westward and eastward. Behind us were the hills and valleys covered with forest through which we had travelled, while in front stretched a great undulating plain, bare and almost without a tree, except in a few places, where there were large circular patches of wood. This was the plain of Ankay, which separates the two belts of forest, and is the home of the Bezànozàno tribe. Beyond this again, ten or twelve miles away, was the upper forest, clothing the slopes and summits of the edge of the interior highland. Careful examination of this region has shown that it was formerly the bed of a great lake, from two to three hundred miles long, extending from the present Lake Alaotra, farther north, and is its gradually diminishing remnant. Subsequent action of water has, however, so cut up its former level that it now presents a very uneven surface. It was dull travelling alone after the pleasant companionship of a fellow-traveller; and in making arrangements for meals, etc., I felt how perfectly helpless a man is when he cannot speak so as to be understood. I was a barbarian to my men, and they were barbarians to me; for my stock of Malagasy words was very limited, and probably almost unintelligible as to pronunciation, so that I was at a complete standstill for nearly everything I wanted to say. We reached Mòramànga, a rather large village, at the commencement of the plain, soon after three in the afternoon and there halted for the rest of the day. This place was a military post of the Hova government, and on passing through passports were examined by the officer in charge.