Haleakala and Kilauca 



235 



It is difficult for a beholder to describe his first impressions of 

 such a scene. The sun was just sinking into the western ocean be- 

 hind cloud-banks that were breaking its light into shafts of gold and 

 scarlet. Out of the nearly total darkness at the bottom of the yawn- 

 ing gulf rose the summits of numerous cinder-cones where the reced- 

 ing volcanic fires in the crater had thrown up loose scoria and sand, 

 building up perfect cones with small craters at their summits. They 

 looked from our elevated stations like ant-hills floating upon dark- 

 ness. The next day, as we threaded our way among them, they 

 proved to be from four hundred to nine hundred feet in height. As 

 the sun sank to the verge of the western ocean the sea of darkness 

 gradually rose from the bottom of the pit, engulfing the summits of 

 the cones until only vague outlines were perceptible. Then great 

 cloud-masses streamed into the crater through the Koolau Gap and 

 sent long white streamers across the black abyss below, while our 

 shadows, magnified into gigantic proportions, reflected our move- 

 ments in grotesque antics upon the abysmal screen. 



We had discovered upon our arrival at the edge of the crater that 

 the stone rest-house where we expected to spend the night was two 

 miles or more farther to the north and that we had to make quick 

 time in order to reach it before dark. We therefore had opportunity 

 to observe the conflict between light and darkness in the maw of the 

 dead volcano as we were hastily scrambling along the crater-edge to 

 reach our shelter. Success rewarded our exertions just as the sun 

 disappeared in a gorgeous splash of crimson and gold beneath the 

 waves of the Pacific. Part of the stupendous sunset spectacle, in the 

 opposite direction, were the massive twin domes of Mauna Kea 

 (13,825 ft.) and Mauna Loa (13,675 ft.) on the island of Hawaii. 

 Across more than a hundred miles of blue ocean they could be plainly 

 seen on the southeastern horizon. Westward the islands of Molokai, 

 Lanai, and Kahoolawe were playing hide-and-seek under gigantic 

 tumbling masses of cumulus, reddening in the sunset. 



The rest-house is a thick-walled, oblong stone-and-concrete cabin 

 on the very edge of the precipice formed by the inner wall of the 

 crater on its northwestern rim. While we were slaking our thirst 

 from a rain-water cistern and were preparing a hasty supper on a 

 stove that poured suffocating volumes of smoke into the room, the 

 Southern Cross rose out of the waste of waters on the southern hori- 

 zon, and the increasing wind dashed waves of fleecy white clouds 



