"You can descend into the great crater if you wish, and there is a path by which you can traverse it; but it is very necessary that you should not turn from the path, as the lava is so sharp that it would endanger your horse's feet to go even a few yards over it. Stick to the route, and implicitly obey your guide."
Fred obtained a map of Haleakala, which we give on the following page. It shows the shape of the crater and the openings at either end, where the lava is supposed to have made an outlet for itself; these openings are called Koolau Gap and Kaupo Gap, the former being something more than two miles across, and the latter a trifle less.
Before leaving Hilo, Doctor Bronson arranged for a schooner to meet the party at a point on the Puna coast, which was easily reached in a day's ride from the crater of Kilauea. Before sunset they had paid the guide for the hire of the horses and his own wages, and the evening saw them dashing through the waters on the way to Honolulu. The trade-wind bore them swiftly along; Hawaii is to windward of Oahu, and while it takes a schooner or other sailing-vessel four or five days to beat from Honolulu to Hilo, the return journey can be made in from twenty-four to thirty hours. The second morning from Puna saw the schooner anchored in the harbor of the capital, and our friends had the satisfaction of breakfasting at the spacious and comfortable Hawaiian hotel.
MAP OF THE HALEAKALA CRATER.
Through the courtesy of a gentleman engaged in the sugar culture, our friends made a visit to a sugar plantation, the culture of the saccharine product being the principal industry of the Hawaiian Islands. We have not space for an account of all they saw and heard, but will give a summary from Fred's note-book.
"Sugar is grown on all the four large islands of the group, but the principal seat of the industry is on Maui, which seems peculiarly favorable to it. We were told that the yield was sometimes between five and six tons to the acre, four tons was not an unusual amount, and it would be considered a poor plantation that did not give two or two and a half tons. The volcanic soil seems to be just what the sugar-cane loves; the seasons are such that planting can be done in many places at any time of the year, and there is not the least danger of frost, as in the sugar area of the United States.
"The common custom is to raise two crops, and then let the ground lie idle for two seasons; so that taking a series of years together, allowance must be made for the idle time in estimating the yield of sugar. In some localities, especially those where the ground is artificially irrigated, this plan is not always followed, as it does not appear to be necessary. To show the growth of the industry, let me say that the export of sugar in 1860 was 1,414,271 pounds, while in 1871, eleven years later, it was 21,760,773 pounds. Last year it was in the neighborhood of fifty million pounds.