So steep is the inward slope of the crater walls that we all experienced a somewhat “eerie” feeling in walking along the footpath at its edge; for at a very few feet from this a false step would set one rolling downwards, with nothing to break the descent to the edge of the cliffs, and then to the dark waters below. Yet there was a strange fascination in the scene, and the variety and contrast and depth of the colours would make the Trìtrìva lake and slopes a striking subject for a painting from many different points along its crater wall. When we arrived, the sun, yet wanting an hour and a half of noon, was still lighting up the grey-white stone of the western cliffs, but the shadows were every minute growing more intense as the sun became more nearly vertical. Far below us was the deep green oval lake; above it, the stratified gneiss cliffs with their black streaks, diversified here and there by patches of bright green bush. Then again from their edges sweep steeply upwards the grey-green sides of the crater, culminating in the lofty western ridge opposite to us. And over all was the blue sky flecked with cirrus clouds; altogether a scene such as I have seen nowhere else in Madagascar, or indeed in any other country. [Sidenote: A ROMANCE] After fixing in our minds the view from the north-east, we proceeded southwards along the crater edge to the higher part at the south-east, where the view is equally striking, and the 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 Trìtrìva 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 Trìtrìva. 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 disapproving 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 offspring, 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.