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.
We climbed the crater-walls, put the horses over impossible places,
rolled stones, and shot wild goats. I did not get any goats. I was
too busy rolling stones. One spot in particular I remember, where
we started a stone the size of a horse. It began the descent easy
enough, rolling over, wobbling, and threatening to stop; but in a
few minutes it was soaring through the air two hundred feet at a
jump. It grew rapidly smaller until it struck a slight slope of
volcanic sand, over which it darted like a startled jackrabbit,
kicking up behind it a tiny trail of yellow dust.
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