mMBlfSE AMPHTTHBATRES. 



403 



and four miles broad, and more than two thousand 

 feet deep. Apparently the crater had ceased its ac- 

 tion a long time ago, and uow the hot springs on the 

 borders of the lake are the only remiodern of the 

 causes that formed it ages and ages ago. As we 

 looked down from our high point, clouds were seen 

 floating beneath us^ and on the opposite wall of the 

 crater long, narrow, vertical strips of naked eart^h 

 marked the places where land-slides had come down 

 its precipitous declivities. 



Soon after we reached Matua, the mspector ar- 

 rived from Fort de Kock, and we went on together 

 toward the northwest. The road was exceedingly 

 rough, and, after nding five miles, our little pony 

 became so worn out that I got out and walked to 

 Palimbayang, the next station, a distance of nine 

 milesj in the scorching, tropical sun. The road from 

 Matua is built on the side of the Barixan chain, and 

 we had on our right a deep valley, in the bottom of 

 which coursed the stream that we had previously 

 crossed in the deep canons near Fort de Kock. Sev- 

 eral small streams came down from the mountains 

 on our left, and in the side valleys, where those 

 streams entered the main one, the natives had formed 

 many ten'aces. 



A number of these smaller valleys had the form 

 of an ellipse, cut in two at its minor axis. In the 

 distance they looked like immense amphitheatres, the 

 horizontal terraces forming the seats for the imagi- 

 nary spectators — amphitheatres of such ample dimen- 

 sions that, in comparison with them, even the great 

 Coliseum at Rome dwindles into insignificance. 



