Walking round to the southern end of the crater edge, the lake, here foreshortened, has a somewhat close resemblance in outline to that of the lake of Galilee, as seen on maps; but I must confess that the first sight of it in its deep chasm made me think much more of the other lake of Palestine, the Dead Sea, in its profound gorge between the Judean hills and the highlands of Moab. After making a slight pencil sketch or two, I proceeded up the far higher saddle-back ridge on the western side. Here the lake seems much diminished in size and lying far down at an awful depth. But a magnificent and extensive view is gained of the surrounding country: the long flat-topped lines of hill to the east running many miles north and south, and surmounted directly east by the two perfect cones of old volcanoes; the peaked and jagged range of Vòlombòrona to the south-east; the enormous mass of Ibity to the south, and then west, a flat region broken by abrupt hills. To the north-west are the thickly populated valleys towards Bétàfo, with many a cup-shaped hill and mountain marking old volcanic vents; and beyond this a high mass of country with serrated outline against the sky, showing the district of Vàvavàto; and finally, coming to due north, is the varied grouping of the hills, which form the southern termination of the central mountain mass of Ankàratra. Between us and these again is the extensive plain of Antsìrabé, with the white walls and gables of the church and the mission buildings plainly visible in the bright sunhsine, although ten or twelve miles distant—altogether, a panorama long to be remembered. From this point also the significance and appropriateness of the name given to the old volcano is clearly seen; for Trìtrìva is apparently a combination of the words _trìtry_, a word used to describe the ridge on the back of a chameleon or a fish, and _ìva_, low, deep; so that the name very happily describes the long steep western ridge or crater wall, and the deep chasm sweeping down from it. [Sidenote: THE VOLCANIC DISCHARGE]