218 A ROMANCE 



depth of the great chasm seems still more profound. Here 

 we waited some time, while most of our men went down to one 

 of the hamlets in the plain to the east to get their meal, in which 

 quest, however, they had only poor success. On expressing a 

 wish to taste the Tritriva water, one of our bearers took a glass, 

 and descending by a breakneck path, went to fetch some water 

 from the lake. He was so long away that we were beginning to 

 feel uneasy, but after a quarter of an hour he reappeared with 

 the water, which tasted perfectly sweet and good. He also 

 entertained us with some of the legends which were certain 

 to have grown up about so weird-looking a place as Tritriva. 

 Pointing to two or three small trees or bushes growing on the 

 face of the cliffs near the northern point of the lake, he told us 

 these were really a young lad and lass who had become attached 

 to each other ; but the hard-hearted parents of the girl dis- 

 approving of the match, the youth took his loin-cloth, and 

 binding it round his sweetheart and his own body, precipitated 

 her with himself into the dark waters. They became, so it is 

 said, two trees growing side by side, and they now have off- 

 spring, for a young tree is growing near them ; and in proof 

 of the truth of this story, he said that if you pinch or break 

 the branches of these trees, it is not sap which exudes, but 

 blood. He appeared to believe firmly in the truth of this 

 story. 



He also told us that the people of a clan called Zanatsara, 

 who live in the neighbourhood, claim some special rights in the 

 Tritriva lake ; and when any one of their number is ill they 

 send to see if the usually clear dark green of the water is becom- 

 ing brown and turbid. If this is the case they believe it to be a 

 presage of death to the sick person. 



Another legend makes the lake the former home of one of the 

 mythical monsters of Malagasy folk-lore, the Fandnim-pito-ldha 

 or " seven-headed serpent." But for some reason or other he 

 grew tired of his residence, and shifted his quarters to the more 

 spacious and brighter lodgings for seven-headed creatures 

 afforded by the other volcanic lake of Andraikiba. 



This same bearer assured us that in the rainy season con- 

 trary to what one would have supposed the water of the lake 

 diminishes, but increases again in the dry season. He told us 

 that there is an outlet to the water, which forms a spring to the 



