Our visit to Betafo was made most pleasant by the great kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Eng. Mr. Eng has now been several years in Madagascar and knows the district well. He has suffered greatly from the local fevers, which re-appear in his system again and again, and keep him an invalid. But his earnest zeal and his longing desire for the welfare of his people render him a valuable member of the Mission. His position is one of great usefulness. The mission-house stands on a little hill in the midst of a vast amphitheatre, cut out of the great valley, at its upper end, by the rivers above named; and while the waters run free in the deep beds which they have made, the sloping banks around the vast enclosure, have been shaped into hundreds of terraces upon which rice is grown. Villages have been placed on all the best parts of the higher ground: and within sight of the mission-house, there must be in these villages some twenty thousand people. A few miles to the east, on the way to Sirabe, is a broad plain, also rich in rice fields. Sirabe itself is full of rice grounds. So also is the Mánandóna valley to the south, which we had already traversed: and so is the Lávadráno plain to the east. There is no lack of villages and people throughout this region. The district lies south-west and south of the Ankárat mountains: and among the Malagasy is known by the technical name of Vákin’ Ankárat, “cut off by Ankárat.” It contains altogether ten thousand _hetra_ or holdings, and these are believed to represent a population of one hundred thousand people. Betafo itself was the head of an independent kingdom, the fortress of which was on the top of a conical hill, on the south of the amphitheatre. It was summoned to surrender by Radáma; and yielded itself without trouble. The district has since formed an integral portion of the Hova dominions. And on her journey home from the Betsileo province, the Queen, with her camp, turned aside to Sirabé, that she might meet with her people. As at Fianáran, so also at Sirabe, she addressed to them all wise and stirring words upon the subject of educating their children.