CHAPTER XVII 



VOLCANIC DISTRICT 



WITHIN a few miles of Antsirab are two crater lakes. 

 The nearer and larger of these is called Andraikiba, 

 which lies distant about four miles due west. This 

 is a beautiful sheet of water, blue as the heavens in colour, in 

 shape an irregular square, but curving round to the north-west, 

 where it shallows into a marsh, which is finally absorbed in rice- 

 fields. The lake is said to be of profound depth, but the hills 

 surrounding it are not very lofty, rising only about two hundred 

 feet above the surface of the water, from which they ascend 

 steeply. Fish and water-fowl, and crocodiles also, are very 

 abundant in and on its waters. 



But the most interesting natural curiosity to be seen in the 

 neighbourhood of Antsirabe is the crater-lake of Tritriva. 

 This is situated about ten miles to the south-west, a pleasant 

 ride of two hours by palanquin. Travelling at first in a westerly 

 direction, the road then turns more to the south-west, and skirts 

 the southern foot of the old volcano of V6hitra. Passing about 

 a mile or two south of the high ground round the southern 

 shores of the Andraikiba lake, the road gradually ascends to a 

 higher level of country, so that in about an hour and a half's 

 time we are nearly as high as the top of Vohitra probably 

 about five hundred feet. Reaching a ridge between two 

 prominent hills, we catch our first sight of Tritriva, now from 

 two to three miles distant in front of us. From this point it 

 shows very distinctly as an oval-shaped hill, its longest axis 

 lying north and south, and with a great depression in its centre, 

 the north-eastern edge of the crater wall being the lowest part 

 of it, from which point it rises gradually southwards and west- 

 wards, the western edge being at the centre from two to three 

 times the height of the eastern side. To the north are two 

 much smaller cup-like hills, looking as if the volcanic forces, after 

 the main crater had been formed, had become weaker and so 



215 



