I mentioned in one of my first letters that East Maui, that part of
the island which lies east of the isthmus of perpetual dust-storms,
consists of a mountain dome 10,000 feet in height, with a monstrous
base. Its slopes are very regular, varying from eight to ten
degrees. Its lava-beds differ from those of Kauai and Oahu in being
lighter in colour, less cellular, and more impervious to water. The
windward side of the mountain is gashed and slashed by streams,
which in their violence have excavated large pot-holes, which serve
as reservoirs, and it is covered to a height of over 2000 feet by a
luxuriant growth of timber. On the leeward side, several black and
very fresh-looking streams of lava run into the sea, and the whole
coast for some height above the shore shows most vigorous volcanic
action. Elsewhere the rock is red and broken, and lateral cones
abound near the base.
The ascent from Makawao, though it is over rather a desolate tract
of land, has in its lower stages such a dismal growth of pining koa
and spurious sandal-wood, and in its upper ones so much ohelo scrub,
with grass and common aspleniums quite up to the top, that as one
sits lazily on one's sure-footed horse, the fact that one is
ascending a huge volcano is not forced upon one by any overmastering
sterility and nakedness.
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