This was a pleasant town of eighty houses, enclosing a rova and stockade: with abundance of cattle, pigs and fowls. The people were exceedingly intelligent and we found them hospitable and kind. The basin in which it stands is eight miles across; the land is grassy and level: several villages were in sight: and we judged that altogether there were four hundred houses in the town and neighbourhood. A fine gneiss hill Andriba, formed its northern boundary: and when we had rounded it, we found beyond a second basin, containing fine clumps of the rofia palm, and a few travellers’ trees. It was a charming spot, with small villages and rice cultivation. The basin was crossed by the river Kámolándi, which like the Máhamókamita, drains the eastern moors and passes to the west into the Ikopa. Half a mile beyond the river was the town of MALATSY (2140), the fifth and last of these garrison towns. The town has sixty houses; on the slopes there may be some ninety more; and about a hundred others scattered about the valley. Near the centre of the valley is a Sakaláva village, the people of which were greatly interested in my photographing, when I endeavoured to take successively pictures of the Andriba Hill and of the Rofia palms. Here once more the grass was on fire and the roaring flames passed within a short distance of our position. We secured valuable additions to our series of observations and carried our stations onward into the districts we have yet to traverse. The religious and social condition of these five towns was a matter of serious concern to us all. The populations are not numerous: they are exiled: they are isolated. But they are important in themselves; and they have an important relation to the communities still beyond them. They are easy of access. They lie along the valleys at intervals of from six to ten miles, and small clumps of houses are found in their neighbourhood. East and west the country seemed entirely empty. No English missionary had visited them, till we went along the line. Mr. Matthews, their nearest neighbour, had been too occupied with the pressing work of his own district to see them personally: but he had several times sent a colporteur among them with books and Scriptures. The only other help they have received is from Hova officers and soldiers and their families, who have passed by them on their journeys northward or when they have come to settle on public duty in their midst. Naturally therefore we found their condition backward and needing much attention from Christian people.