Besides the thunderstorms like those just described, which come so close and are often so awful in their results, there is another kind of storm we frequently see in the rainy season which is an unmixed source of delight. This is when, for two or three hours together in the evening, a large portion of the sky is lighted up by an almost incessant shimmer of lightning, now revealing glimpses of a glory as if heaven itself were opening, and anon showing many different tiers and strata of clouds lying one behind the other, and alternately lighted up, making clear the outlines of the nearer masses of cumulus upon the brilliant background. How wonderful are the different colours of this lightning! intense white, like glowing metal, now red, and now violet; and not less wonderful are its forms! now it is a zigzag, which plunges downwards, now it branches out horizontally, and again it darts upwards into the clouds; and then, for a few moments, there is nothing but an incessant quiver and shimmer, which lights up first one quarter of the heavens, and then another, and then the whole. All the time no thunder is heard from this celestial display, but it is most fascinating to watch the infinitely varied effects of light and darkness, till we sometimes feel as if a “door was opened in heaven,” and we could catch a glimpse of “the excellent glory” within. [Sidenote: OLD STYLE DIVISION OF TIME] Something may be said here about the native division of time. Although the European months and year have become generally known and used, the old style of months are still recognised to some extent by the Malagasy. Their months were lunar ones, and therefore their year was eleven days shorter than ours, their New Year’s Day coming consequently at different times, from the first to the twelfth month, until the cycle was complete after thirty-three years. When I first came to Madagascar the Malagasy New Year began in the month of March; and this style of reckoning time was kept up until the accession of the last native sovereign, Queen Rànavàlona III., in 1883. The Malagasy appear never to have made any attempt, by the insertion of intercalary days or any other contrivance, to fill up their shorter year to the true time occupied in the earth’s annual revolution round the sun; for of course they must have noticed that their New Year came at quite different periods after a few years. The names of the Malagasy months are all Arabic in origin, as indeed are also the days of the week (Alahàdy (Sunday), Alàtsinainy (Monday), Talàta (Tuesday), Alarobìa (Wednesday), etc.); but it is curious that the month names are not the Arabic names of the months, but are those of the constellations of the Zodiac. Thus, Alàhamàdy is the Ram, Adaoro is the Bull (_daoro_ = _taurus_), Adizaoza is the Twins, and so on. This appears to have arisen from the connection between astrology and the divination (_sikìdy_) introduced by the Arabs several centuries ago.