HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
Ill 
houses are constructed, the position in which they are built, 
the number or aspects of their doors or windows, or the 
manner in which the interior is arranged. The following 
are among the peculiarities of the chief tribes or races in 
the island. 
The Hovas have their towns and villages surrounded by 
deep ditches. All their houses, without exception, are 
placed north and south, and are of the same form, having 
one high door in the south-west end. A window nearly 
as large as the door to the north-west. The divisions and 
arrangements of the interior are also the same in all. 
In the provinces of the Antsianaka and Bezanozano, the 
houses stand north and south, like the Hovas, but their 
doors are north-west, and their windows south-west. The 
arrangements within are also entirely the reverse of those 
of the Hovas. They have ditches round their villages, 
and many of the houses have a second door to the north¬ 
east. 
In the northern parts of Betsileo, the houses are situated 
north and south. The door is placed south-west, and the 
window north-west, the bed inside being opposite the 
door, and not opposite the window as in Ankova. With 
them, as with the Hovas, their villages are surrounded by 
deep ditches. They excel the Hovas in the construction 
of magnificent tombs over the vaults of the dead. 
The houses of the Sakalavas are in general miserable 
huts, often little better than holes in the earth, covered 
with branches of trees ; their towns and fortifications are 
also without any kind of regularity. It is probable, that 
in time of war, they have trusted rather to their own 
bravery, to the defence of their immense woods and 
forests, and to the food afforded by the wild cattle and other 
natural produce which these wilds supplied, than to the 
