Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/64

40 many curious and terrible sights. It has been an experience which we shall long remember."

Our friends wanted to visit the great crater of Haleakala, on the island of Maui, in order to be able to compare an extinct volcano with a live one, but time did not permit. They talked with a gentleman who had been there, and that, said Fred, was the next best thing to seeing with their own eyes. Here is the substance of what they learned concerning Haleakala:

"You have a ride of about twelve miles to reach the summit, and you ought to go up so as to sleep at the top and get the view at sunrise. There is no house there, but of this there is no need, as there are several caves in the lava—they are really broken lava-bubbles, which are each large enough to shelter half a dozen persons comfortably. Of course you must have a guide and must carry plenty of blankets, or you will suffer from the cold. Water and wood can be found near the top of the mountain.

"The crater of Haleakala is thirty miles in circumference, or ten miles across, and it is two thousand feet from the edge of the rim that surrounds it to the floor of the crater; over this floor are spread ten or twelve smaller craters and cones, some of them large enough to be good-sized mountains by themselves, as they are nearly, if not quite, a thousand feet high.

"You can descend into the great crater if you wish, and there is a path by which you can traverse it; but it is very necessary that you should not turn from the path, as the lava is so sharp that it would endanger your horse's feet to go even a few yards over it. Stick to the route, and implicitly obey your guide."

Fred obtained a map of Haleakala, which we give on the following page. It shows the shape of the crater and the openings at either end, where the lava is supposed to have made an outlet for itself; these openings are called Koolau Gap and Kaupo Gap, the former being something more than two miles across, and the latter a trifle less.

Before leaving Hilo, Doctor Bronson arranged for a schooner to meet the party at a point on the Puna coast, which was easily reached in a day's ride from the crater of Kilauea. Before sunset they had paid the guide for the hire of the horses and his own wages, and the evening saw them dashing through the waters on the way to Honolulu. The trade-wind bore them swiftly along; Hawaii is to windward of Oahu, and while it takes a schooner or other sailing-vessel four or five days to beat from Honolulu to Hilo, the return journey can be made