Our course from Ambohimasina was south-east, right up the valley of Betafo. This valley is in shape like an inverted funnel: at the western mouth it is five miles across: at the higher and eastern end it is a mile and a half wide. It is enclosed by high ridges through its entire length. A fine gneiss ridge overhangs it on the south. On the north the granite mountains of Mahasoa and the inner ridges of the Vava Vato, hang above it for ten miles: then follows a low gneiss ridge which extends to Betafo. The floor of the valley is of the sedimentary clay: it belongs to the upper plateau of Imerina and would, if undisturbed have descended to the west by three broad stairs, each five miles wide. It is the disturbances from which this enclosed valley has suffered, that give it its peculiar features and make its physical geography a subject of so much interest. Like many sections of Ankay it illustrates in miniature the process by which whole continents have been formed. First, at its upper corner on the south side, there meet two rivers, the Andrasáy from the east and the Lóalámbo from the north: the latter brings down a strong body of water from high ground: and both streams under the name of Loalómbo, have cleared the clay down to the gneiss rock, through the entire length of the valley along its south side, and carried the soil into the western plains. Five miles below their junction a strong stream comes out from the Vava Vato, called the Tsi-tánymaláma, “not a slippery land;” a sensible name, given by some Malagasy traveller with bare feet, when he was passing over its sharp granite pebbles: this stream cuts the great valley clean across with a valley of its own, and through the deep gulley flows into the Lóalámbo. Below this again, small streams from the granite have made numerous minor cuttings: and five miles below, a second river, the Sakóva, shallow at present but strong in the rainy season, does the same; cutting the clay with beautiful curves and leaving a high bank and ridge overhanging the water on the east side. All the ledges at the foot of these ridges are studded with villages, and hamlets, and in the centre of the valley, below the Sakova, is the village and Mission-house of Soávina, another station of the Norwegian Mission. On the north side of the valley is a series of clay terraces, beautifully formed; and numerous hamlets in a cluster combine to make up the town of Ambáranákóho. There is considerable population in this part of the valley and more than one chapel is conspicuous on the hill-side. Near the broad mouth of the valley, though the clay hills are numerous, the general level that has been reached by all this cutting and washing of the streams, is that of the lower terrace in Menabe. At the south-west corner of the valley, the Lóalámbo having gathered all the streams into itself, flows full and strong across the plains, south of the great peak of Ivohibe, to join the river Mania.