This mountain, Haleakala, the House of the Sun, is the
largest extinct volcano in the world, its terminal crater being
nineteen miles in circumference at a height of more than 10,000
feet. It, and its spurs, slopes, and clusters of small craters form
East Maui. West Maui is composed mainly of the lofty picturesque
group of the Eeka mountains. A desert strip of land, not much above
high water mark, unites the twain, which form an island forty-eight
miles long and thirty broad, with an area of 620 square miles.
We left Maui in the afternoon, and spent the next six hours in
crossing the channel between it and Hawaii, but the short tropic day
did not allow us to see anything of the latter island but two snow-
capped domes uplifted above the clouds. I have been reading Jarves'
excellent book on the islands as industriously as possible, as well
as trying to get information from my fellow-passengers regarding the
region into which I have been so suddenly and unintentionally
projected. I really know nothing about Hawaii, or the size and
phenomena of the volcano to which we are bound, or the state of
society or of the native race, or of the relations existing between
it and the foreign population, or of the details of the
constitution.
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