broad road running straight up the slope of the hill. The upper town is laid out with great regularity. It includes the house of the Governor, now old, with thick walls and in need of considerable repair. It has numerous houses of large size for the garrison: and in it are the garrison church and the house in which the Sákalávas have deposited relics of some former king, whom they greatly honour. The palisade of the Hova town is surrounded by a ditch and a platform, and is defended by a number of old English navy guns, 12- and 9-pounders. Below and around the Hova town, the hill is covered richly with wood. Indeed there is quite a forest of tamarind, mango, palm and cocoanut trees, many of which are noble specimens of their class. The talipot-palms also were strong and massive. And there were ten or twelve specimens of the baobab, called in Malagasy, the _Botona_. Of the great baobab I obtained a good photograph: the tree is over sixty feet high: and the trunk near the ground is forty feet in girth. The lower town extends half a mile along the shore: in the central parts it is five rows of houses deep: at the east end these are thinner. These houses are very light and frail: they have a wooden frame: but the panels are filled in with palmetto leaves, which form a pretty pattern: they are thatched with larger leaves of the cocoanut and palm. They are of course very inflammable and one does not wonder to hear that the town is burnt down nearly once a year. At the west end of the town on a spit of sand in the market, with a vast collection of bullocks’ skulls, bones and remnants: the smell of which was dreadful. An important element in the lower town is the Hindu and Arab houses, which are employed both as residences for their owners and as safe storehouses for goods. They are built on the Indian pattern: they are of solid material, stone or brick, cemented with lime dug from the hill; they are of two or three stories; have flat roofs and terraces, and contain small rooms. There are about forty of these houses in the town: they have been built by Malagasy workmen, look rough and coarse: and are wholly wanting in the neatness and finish which are given to such houses in Calcutta or Bombay. The town has two mosques: one for the Arab merchants: and one for the Mahomedan traders from Bombay, whose customs doubtless differ in some points from one another. Rival muezzins, morning and evening, summon the faithful to their prayers. The number of houses amounts to 1327: and the entire population reaches probably to ten thousand. The Hova element is very strong. The Indian adults are about fifty. There are a few Sákalávas in both towns: and the African slaves, universally called by the Malagasy “Mojambikas,” are very numerous. Their skin is very dark: and they have thick lips and curling hair. But they are not pure negroes. They belong to various tribes on the east coast of Africa, who all understand more or less the Swahili language.