Our garden was a very practical place also. We grew English peas, broad beans, French beans, carrots, mint and vegetable marrows. We had a large number of mango-trees, which yielded a good crop of mangoes, and several bibás or loquat trees, which also gave very sweet fruit. And several cucumber vines secured a regular supply of English cucumbers. During the rainy season, from December to April, the weather was exceedingly pleasant. The sun was hot: but the air in Imerina is thin and the heat was not oppressive or fiery, as on the coast or in the plains of India. The thermometer usually stood in the shade at 75°. Under a strange but convenient rule the storms and thundershowers rarely fell before four in the afternoon. But often during the evening they would burst with great violence: the lightning would stream in chains of molten silver all over the sky; the thunder would follow in sharp, cracking peals with a terrific cannonade; and then the rain fell in torrents. During the morning the air was exquisitely fresh and crisp and pure: the sky was a pale, delicate blue; the light was sharp and brilliant; and we could distinctly see objects many miles away, as if they were close by. The view from the platform on which our house stood, over the plain to the northward was wonderfully beautiful. Bordered by grand hills and studded with hundreds of villages and towns, Imerina is in many respects one of the most picturesque provinces of Madagascar. Here it is gay with the bright green of the young rice: there it is shaded with the dark woods of Iláfy and Ambóhimánga. Here the great turtle-head rock of Ambátomaláza stands conspicuous in the landscape, or the lofty pillars of the Three Sisters; there are the long slope of Fándravásana, the rugged peaks of Antóngona, or the towering masses of Ankáratra. Here lie the quiet waters of the Queen’s Lake, with its little island embowered in trees; there are seen clusters of villages with their brown huts, the green ramparts of Ambóhidrapéto or the lofty amóntana of Ambóhidratrímo. It was impossible to survey this wide-spread scene without feelings of exhilaration and delight. We know the golden glory which at sunset lights up the snows of Switzerland: but nothing can exceed the sharpness of the light as it plays over the landscape in the crisp, clear air of Madagascar after refreshing rain; and no pen can describe the deep golden blush which beautifies the red hills with an unearthly radiance when the autumnal sun sinks calmly to rest. Day after day, from the terrace of my Madagascar home I looked with feelings akin to rapture upon that wondrous scene. For I saw on every side not merely material beauty, the grace of form, rich tones and tints of colour, or the bountiful supply for a people’s wants; I beheld the proofs of a young nation’s progress; new houses rising in the villages; new houses of better pattern for the wealthier classes. I saw the fortressed hills