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312 VISITS TO MADAGASCAK. CHAP. XII. probably the proprietor of the village below, had selected for his last resting-place. The Hova chiefs manifest considerable solicitude about their graves; and I was told that one of the chief officers who died lately at the capital, requested of his sons, shortly before his death, that after his interment they would occasionally remove the large stone slab that would form the door of his sepulchre, and let the sun shine in upon him. During the morning I walked a considerable distance, though the ground was wet, and much of our way through the forest which covered the summit of the hill. Once or twice in the intervals of open country, when the horizon was clear, we again obtained a view of the distant ocean. The view from one of these summits was extensive, varied, and exceedingly beautiful; but, at the same time, deeply affecting, from the mournful associations with the past with which it was connected. To the west, or before us as we were as cending, were the lofty wooded ridges which we yet had to climb, and beyond the summits of these mountains the borders of Imerina. To the east was the wooded and partly cultivated valley immediately below us; and, stretching to the north and the south, and on the opposite sides of this valley, the de scending ridges of the mountain ranges over which we had passed, diversified with rock, and herbage, and forest; while beyond these, in the far distance, swept the dim, dark, but yet well-defined line of the wide waters of the ocean. This spot, surrounded as it is by scenes of vastness, grandeur, and beauty, is called “The Weeping-place of the Hovas;” a name of just and mournful import, connected with the miseries of the slave trade, which, by virtue of a treaty between'this country and England, was abolished in the year 1817. It has been calculated that, previous to this period, between three and four thousand unhappy beings were exported annually as slaves. Great numbers of these came from the capital, where