LETTER XXIV,] 



AN ISLAND SAHARA. 



223 



rare, dismal growth of thornless thistles and indigo, and a tre- 

 mendous surf thunders on the margin. Trackless, glaring, 

 choking, a guide is absolutely necessary to a stranger, for the 

 footprints or wheel-marks of one moment are obliterated the 

 next. I crossed the isthmus three times, and the third time 

 was quite as incapable of shaping my course across it as the 

 first, and though I had recklessly declined a guide, was only 

 too thankful for the one who was forced upon me. It is a 

 hateful ride, yet anything so hideous and aggressively odious is 

 a salutary experience in a land of so much beauty. Sand, sand, 

 sand ! Sand-hills, smooth and red ; sand-plains, rippled, white, 

 and glaring ; sand drifts shifting ; sand clouds whirling ; sand 

 in your eyes, nose, and mouth ; sand stinging your face like 

 pin points ; sand hiding even your horse's ears ; sand rippling 

 like waves, hissing like spin-drift, malignant, venomous ! You 

 can only open one eye at a time for a wink at where you 

 are going. Looking down upon it from Heiku, you can see 

 nothing all day but the dense brown clouds of a perpetual 

 sand-storm. 



My charming hostess and her husband made Heiku so 

 fascinating, that I only quitted it hoping to return. The object 

 which usually attracts strangers to Maui is the great dead 

 volcano of Haleakala, " The house of the sun," and I was 

 fortunate in all the circumstances of my ascent. My host at 

 Heiku provided me with a horse and native attendant, and I 

 rode over the evening before to the house of his brother, Mr. 

 J. Alexander, who accompanied me, and his intelligent and 

 cultured society was one of the pleasures of the day. 



People usually go up in the afternoon, camp near the summit, 

 light a fire, are devoured by fleas, roast and freeze alternately 

 till morning, and get up to see the grand spectacle of the sun- 

 rise, but I think our plan preferable, of leaving at two in the 

 morning. The moon had set. It was densely dark, and it was 

 raining on one side of the road, though quite fine on the other. 

 By the lamplight which streamed from our early breakfast table, 

 I only saw wet mules and horses, laden with gear for a mountain 

 ascent, a trim little Japanese, who darted about helping, my 

 native, who was picturesquely dressed in a Mexican poncho, 

 Mr. Alexander, who wore something which made him unrecog- 

 nisable ; and myself, a tatterdemalion figure, wearing a much- 

 worn green topcoat of his over my riding suit, and a tartan 

 shawl arranged so as to fall nearly to my feet. Then we went 

 forth into the darkness. The road soon degenerated into a 



