216 AN OLD VOLCANO 



been unable to discharge any longer by the old vent, and had 

 therefore formed two newer outlets at a lower level. 



Descending a little from the ridge just mentioned, we cross a 

 valley with a good many scattered hamlets, and in less than 

 half-an-hour reach the foot of the hill. A few minutes' pull up 

 a tolerably easy slope, perhaps two hundred feet in height, 

 brings up to the top, at the lowest part of the crater edge ; and 

 on reaching the ridge the crater of the old volcano and its lake 

 is before us, or, rather, below us. It is certainly an extra- 

 ordinary scene. The inner sides of the crater dip down very 

 steeply on all sides to a deep gulf, and here, sharply denned by 

 perpendicular cliffs all round it, except just at the southern 

 point, is a rather weird-looking dark green lake far below us, 

 the water surface being probably from two hundred to three 

 hundred feet lower than the point we are standing upon, and 

 consequently below the level of the surrounding country. The 

 lake, exactly shut in by the cliffs of the crater surrounding it, is 

 not blue in colour, like Andraikiba, although under a bright and 

 cloudless sky, but a deep and somewhat blackish-green. It 

 must look, one would suppose, like ink under a stormy sky or in 

 the shadows of evening. 



We sit down to rest and try to take in all the details of this 

 novel picture. It is undoubtedly an old volcano we are now 

 looking down into ; the spot on which we rest is only a few feet 

 in breadth, and we can see that this narrow knife-edge is the 

 same all round the crater. Outside of it the slope is pretty easy, 

 but inside it descends steeply, here and there precipitously, to 

 the edge of the cliffs which so sharply define the actual vent 

 and, as distinctly, the lake which they enclose. Looking 

 southwards, the crater-edge gradually ascends, winding round 

 the southern side, and still ascending as the eye follows it to the 

 western, the opposite side, where the crater wall towers steeply 

 up from two hundred to three hundred feet higher than it does 

 on the east, where we are standing. The lake we judge to be 

 about eight hundred to nine hundred feet long and two hundred 

 to two hundred and fifty feet wide, forming a long oval, with 

 pointed ends. The cliffs which enclose it appear to be from 

 forty to fifty feet in height, whitish in colour, but with black 

 streaks, where the rain, charged with carbonic acid, has poured 

 more plentifully down their faces. These cliffs are vertical and 



