rim of the crater circling away from the pinnacle
whereon we sat, for a ghostly procession of wanderers from the filmy
hosts without had drifted through a chasm in the crater wall and filed
round and round, and gathered and sunk and blended together till the
abyss was stored to the brim with a fleecy fog. Thus banked, motion
ceased, and silence reigned. Clear to the horizon, league on league, the
snowy folds, with shallow creases between, and with here and there
stately piles of vapory architecture lifting themselves 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."

The extraordinary perfection of this desert crater is probably due to
two causes. Vents which tapped it far down the volcano's flanks
prevented its filling with molten lava; absence of rain has preserved
its walls intact and saved its pristine beauty from the defacement of
erosion.

Haleakala has its legend, and this Jack London has sifted to its
elements and given us in "The Cruise of the _Snark_." I quote:

"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
cocoanuts, from the fibre of which he braided a stout cord, and in one
end of which he made a noose, even as the cowboys of Haleakala do to
this day.

"Next he climbed into the House of the