It is told that long ago, one Maui, the son of Hina, lived on what is now known as West Maui.His mother, Hina, employed her time in the making of kapas.She must have made them at night, for her days were occupied in trying to dry the kapas.Each morning, and all morning, she toiled at spreading them out in the sun.But no sooner were they out, than she began taking them in, in order to have them all under shelter for the night.For know that the days were shorter then than now.Maui watched his mother's futile toil and felt sorry for her.He decided to do something--oh, no, not to help her hang out and take in the kapas.He was too clever for that.
His idea was to make the sun go slower.Perhaps he was the first Hawaiian astronomer.At any rate, he took a series of observations of the sun from various parts of the island.His conclusion was that the sun's path was directly across Haleakala.Unlike Joshua, he stood in no need of divine assistance.He gathered a huge quantity of coconuts, from the fibre of which he braided a stout cord, and in one end of which he made a noose, even as the cow-boys of Haleakala do to this day.Next he climbed into the House of the Sun and laid in wait.When the sun came tearing along the path, bent on completing its journey in the shortest time possible, the valiant youth threw his lariat around one of the sun's largest and strongest beams.He made the sun slow down some; also, he broke the beam short off.And he kept on roping and breaking off beams till the sun said it was willing to listen to reason.Maui set forth his terms of peace, which the sun accepted, agreeing to go more slowly thereafter.Wherefore Hina had ample time in which to dry her kapas, and the days are longer than they used to be, which last is quite in accord with the teachings of modern astronomy.
We had a lunch of jerked beef and hard poi in a stone corral, used of old time for the night-impounding of cattle being driven across the island.Then we skirted the rim for half a mile and began the descent into the crater.Twenty-five hundred feet beneath lay the floor, and down a steep slope of loose volcanic cinders we dropped, the sure-footed horses slipping and sliding, but always keeping their feet.The black surface of the cinders, when broken by the horses' hoofs, turned to a yellow ochre dust, virulent in appearance and acid of taste, that arose in clouds.There was a gallop across a level stretch to the mouth of a convenient blow-hole, and then the descent continued in clouds of volcanic dust, winding in and out among cinder-cones, brick-red, old rose, and purplish black of colour.Above us, higher and higher, towered the crater-walls, while we journeyed on across innumerable lava-flows, turning and twisting a devious way among the adamantine billows of a petrified sea.Saw-toothed waves of lava vexed the surface of this weird ocean, while on either hand arose jagged crests and spiracles of fantastic shape.Our way led on past a bottomless pit and along and over the main stream of the latest lava-flow for seven miles.
At the lower end of the crater was our camping spot, in a small grove of olapa and kolea trees, tucked away in a corner of the crater at the base of walls that rose perpendicularly fifteen hundred feet.Here was pasturage for the horses, but no water, and first we turned aside and picked our way across a mile of lava to a known water-hole in a crevice in the crater-wall.The water-hole was empty.But on climbing fifty feet up the crevice, a pool was found containing half a dozen barrels of water.A pail was carried up, and soon a steady stream of the precious liquid was running down the rock and filling the lower pool, while the cow-boys below were busy fighting the horses back, for there was room for one only to drink at a time.Then it was on to camp at the foot of the wall, up which herds of wild goats scrambled and blatted, while the tent arose to the sound of rifle-firing.Jerked beef, hard poi, and broiled kid were the menu.Over the crest of the crater, just above our heads, rolled a sea of clouds, driven on by Ukiukiu.Though this sea rolled over the crest unceasingly, it never blotted out nor dimmed the moon, for the heat of the crater dissolved the clouds as fast as they rolled in.Through the moonlight, attracted by the camp-fire, came the crater cattle to peer and challenge.They were rolling fat, though they rarely drank water, the morning dew on the grass taking its place.It was because of this dew that the tent made a welcome bedchamber, and we fell asleep to the chanting of hulas by the unwearied Hawaiian cowboys, in whose veins, no doubt, ran the blood of Maui, their valiant forebear.
The camera cannot do justice to the House of the Sun.The sublimated chemistry of photography may not lie, but it certainly does not tell all the truth.The Koolau Gap may be faithfully reproduced, just as it impinged on the retina of the camera, yet in the resulting picture the gigantic scale of things would be missing.
Those walls that seem several hundred feet in height are almost as many thousand; that entering wedge of cloud is a mile and a half wide in the gap itself, while beyond the gap it is a veritable ocean; and that foreground of cinder-cone and volcanic ash, mushy and colourless in appearance, is in truth gorgeous-hued in brick-red, terra-cotta rose, yellow ochre, and purplish black.Also, words are a vain thing and drive to despair.To say that a crater-wall is two thousand feet high is to say just precisely that it is two thousand feet high; but there is a vast deal more to that crater-wall than a mere statistic.The sun is ninety-three millions of miles distant, but to mortal conception the adjoining county is farther away.This frailty of the human brain is hard on the sun.
It is likewise hard on the House of the Sun.Haleakala has a message of beauty and wonder for the human soul that cannot be delivered by proxy.Kolikoli is six hours from Kahului; Kahului is a night's run from Honolulu; Honolulu is six days from San Francisco; and there you are.
