AMBOHIVELOMA is a country town of unusually striking appearance. It is situated on the top of a clay hill, 450 feet above the rice plain: the hill slopes up rapidly and is deeply scored with ditches and gullies once relied on as fortifications. The town contains a hundred houses. Two large and well-built houses stand at the top of the town, which belong to the principal family in the place, and near them are the family tombs. Indeed the tombs are royal, one of the old kings of the district being buried here. There are other houses about, enclosing plenty of space: and the hill is covered with trees. The chapel is rather a small building, unworthy of the place and people: but that defect will soon be remedied. We found in it a school of thirty-five children. It has been arranged that the missionaries coming to occupy Ambohiveloma shall rearrange these two principal houses, and reside in them while the permanent English house is being built, on the northern slope of the hill. Ambohiveloma is surrounded by fertile rice valleys well supplied with water. It is therefore the centre of a large population; villages and hamlets are seen in all directions on the little terraces of the hills above the fields. A hundred such are found within a few miles and some of the villages are large. Beyond these villages on all sides the population is thin; even on the east as well as north and south. And as the ancient kingdom that was established here stood isolated from others, so the new Mission district about to be arranged for, will have a sphere of its own and be to a considerable extent separated from others. Nevertheless it has the prospect of much usefulness. On the following day we ascended a lofty hill, named Ambóhimaláza, four miles to the south-west of Ambohiveloma: and had a fine view of this western part of Imerina. We stood in a new position just between districts, to the south and north, over which we had slowly travelled. Many of our great landmarks were in sight and were distinctly seen in the clear air. Lohavohitra to the north: Ambohimiangára to the south-west: Tsiafakáfo and the peaks of Ankárat: Ambohimanáha, and others even more distant, were prominent points in the outstretched landscape. We saw also two noble granite masses in the north-west, Ambohitrondrona and Antáramánana, which have lofty serrated peaks and resemble in many respects the granite ridges of the Vava Vato and of Ibety.