MAUI ISLE AND HALEAKALA GRATER 
Second island in size, with an area of 728 
square miles, Maui is a land of two distinct moun¬ 
tain mass formations, the greater being the tre¬ 
mendous hulk of Mount Idaleakala (“House of 
the Sun”) which rises gradually to a height of 
over 10,000 feet. The largest extinct volcano in 
the world and one of the principal marvels of the 
Hawaiian Islands, Haleakala is the chief glory of 
the Valley Isle, though Maui justly claims atten¬ 
tion for many other wonders. 
The crater of Haleakala is ten miles square; 
the circumference of its rim measures twenty 
miles; its extreme length is about seven and a 
half miles, while the greatest width is over two 
and a third miles. Almost vertical, the walls 
have a drop of half a mile or more, and in the 
titanic bowl are huge cinder cones rising hun¬ 
dreds of feet from the bottom of the crater, but 
seeming very small to one who looks down upon 
them from the roof of the House of the Sun. 
On the crater’s edge has been established a com¬ 
fortable rest house above the usual cloud eleva- 
vation, from which can be seen the vast slopes 
of the giant mountain, the isthmus, and the west¬ 
ern and older portion of the island where erosion 
has carved gulches and valleys in the mass that 
once was a group of active craters. In this more 
ancient section of a country that was once two 
islands the precipitous sides rise in places sheer 
from the ocean level to a height of 5,000 feet. 
Looking far down from ITaleakala’s long silent 
lips, the rapt beholder gazes upon one of the rich¬ 
est plains of earth. Away off are the cornfields 
of Kula; further down the cactus, and then the 
cane lands, dotted with reservoirs. And then the 
sand hills beyond which rise more sugar cane plan¬ 
tations, with the cloud-hugged West Maui moun¬ 
tains high above. 
Then the mountain-climber turns to look into 
the yawning abyss of the monster crater, to be fas¬ 
cinated by the variety of coloring seen in the 
sands. Over the sloping sands he treads for an 
hour until he reaches a point of vantage in the 
basin from which he may inspect the cinder 
cones, some of them 600 feet in height, which 
appeared to him little more than ant hills when he 
saw. them from above. 
Upon the sides of the crater grows the Silver 
Sword, found in few other parts of the world. 
Over half a century ago, without the comforts 
and facilities of travel enjoyed nowadays, Mark 
Twain ascended Haleakala. He and other travel¬ 
ers built a camp-fire and spent the night waiting 
for the miracle of the morn. In his “Roughing 
It,” where he devotes many pages to his experi¬ 
ence in the Hawaiian Islands, he has this to say 
of the sunrise from Maui’s crater edge: 
“With the first pallor of dawn we got up and 
saw things that were new to us. Mounted on 
a commanding pinnacle, we watched Nature work 
her silent wonders. The sea was spread abroad on 
every hand, its tumbled surface seeming only 
wrinkled and dimpled in the distance. A broad 
valley below appeared like an ample checker 
board, its velvety green sugar plantations alter¬ 
nating with dun squares of barrenness and groves 
of trees diminished to mossy tufts. Beyond the 
valley were mountains picturesquely grouped to¬ 
gether ; but, bear in mind, we fancied that we 
were looking up at these things—not down. We 
seemed to sit in the bottom of a symmetrical bowl 
ten thousand feet deep, with the valley and the 
skirting sea lifted away into the sky above us! It 
was curious, and not only curious, but aggra¬ 
vating; for it was having our trouble all for noth¬ 
ing, to climb ten thousand feet toward heaven and 
then have to look up at our scenery. . . . The 
crater of Vesuvius, as I have before remarked, is 
a modest pit about a thousand feet deep and three 
thousand in circumference. That o 4 ’ Kilauea is 
somewhat deeper, and ten miles in circumference. 
But what are either of them compared to the va¬ 
cant stomach of Haleakala ? ... If it had a level 
bottom it would make a fine site for a city like 
London. It must have afforded a spectacle worth 
contemplating in the old days when its furnaces 
gave full rein to their anger. 
“the sublimest spectacle” 
“Presently vagrant clouds came drifting along, 
high over the sea and valley, then they came in 
couples and groups, then in imposing squadrons. 
Gradually joining their forces they banked them¬ 
selves solidly together a thousand feet under us, 
and totally shut out land and ocean—not a vestige 
of anything was left in view, but just a little of 
the rim of the crater, circling away from the pin¬ 
nacle whereon we sat. Thus banked, motion 
ceased and silence reigned. Clear to the horizon, 
league on league, the snowy floor stretched with¬ 
out a break—not level, but in rounded folds, with 
shallow creases between, and with here and there 
stately piles of vapory architecture lifting them¬ 
selves aloft out of the common plain—some near 
at hand, some in the middle distances, and others 
relieving the monotony of the remote solitudes. 
There was little conversation, for the impressive 
scene overawed speech. I felt like the Last Man, 
neglected of the judgment, and left pinnacled in 
mid-heaven a forgotten relic of a vanished world. 
“While the hush yet brooded, the messengers of 
the coming resurrection appeared in the east. A 
growing warmth suffused the horizon, and soon the 
sun emerged and looked out over the cloud waste, 
REST HOUSE ABOVE CLOUDS 
MARK TWAIN ON HALEAKALA 
