But the forest was very fine: we soon reached a clean and pleasant resting-place, Ampásimfótsy, and crossing a high broad ridge, scored by local rice valleys, early in the afternoon, we descended into the broad plain of Ankay, and reached the town of Moramanga. Here we were welcomed by Mr. Wills, one of the English Missionaries, who had been visiting his country churches. The weekly market was in the height of business; meat and clothing were the chief articles we observed exposed for sale. But the place was indescribably dirty. It had probably never been swept from the day when the market was commenced, through thirty intermediate generations, down to the present day. The plain of Ankay is a place of peculiar interest; there is nothing like it in the island. It is a vast plain of sedimentary clay, enclosed by bordering chains of hills, which run in a direction from north to south. Ankay proper is at least one hundred and eighty miles long and, here, is about twenty miles broad. The chain along its eastern side is not lofty, it has a height of only 365 feet. It is rather like a lip to the plain below than an overhanging wall; it consists largely too of the same material as the plain itself, with gneiss rocks underlying and intermingled with it. The western chain, on the contrary, is a lofty wall of granite and gneiss, 1620 feet high; it overhangs the plain in its entire length, and passes far beyond it. It is the second of the great ridge walls, by which so much of the contour of the island is regulated. It runs the entire length of the island, as far as known, and is covered all the way with wood, which forms the second and upper line of the primeval forest. Vast buttresses of rock project into the plain from its lofty front, and deep ravines and valleys run in behind them, giving to the scenery a rich variety of outline, and of detail. Ankay should be a level plain. It once was so. But its material is soft and friable, and water speedily washes it away. For countless ages storms, floods, waterspouts and steady rains have made havoc of its surface. It is ploughed and scored into little valleys in all directions; but the scorings all find an outlet, and pass from one to another, till they reach the central drain of all, the valley of the Mangoro River. The bottom of this valley is 325 feet below the level of the plain; and the river flows (like the Jordan) in a little valley within the valley. Naturally, this great draining valley with its river runs, like its enclosing walls, a course from north to south. The Mangoro eventually makes its way through the eastern chain, descends the great hills by a series of rapids and cascades, and falls into the sea near Manahoro. It is interesting to observe that under the western hills, where floods and waters are most abundant, the plain is a hundred feet lower than on its eastern side. We shall see more of this plain hereafter, when we traverse its northern end on the way to the Sihánaka province.