of the centre.  Vegetation was also climbing down the ragged sides of the crater, dropping from rock to rock like an invading host.  The ferns, those pioneers of the vegetable world, appear to come first.  Their giant progenitors subdued the rocks and made the soil in Carboniferous times, and prepared the way for higher vegetable forms, and now these striplings take up the same task in this primitive world of the crater of Haleakala.  Their task is a long and arduous one, much more so than in those parts of the island where the rainfall is more copious; but give them time enough, and the barren lava will all be clothed with verdure.  When decomposed and ripened by time, it makes a red, heavy soil that supports many kinds of plants and trees.

The ferns come slowly marching in from without, but in the centre of the crater, on the slopes of the red cones and at their bases, is another plant that seems indigenous, born of the ash and the scoria of the volcano, and that apparently has no chlorophyl in its make-up.  This is a striking plant, called the silver sword, from the shape and color of its long, narrow leaves.  They are the color of frosted silver, and are curved like a sword.  It is a strange apparition, white and delicate and rare, springing up in the crater of a slumbering volcano.  A more striking contrast with the atmosphere of the surroundings would be hard to find—­a suggestion of peace and purity above the graves of world-destroying forces, an angel of light nourished by the ashes of the demons of death and darkness.

It is claimed by the people of the island that this plant is found in no other place on the globe, but this can hardly be possible.  If its evolution took place in one crater, it would take place in another.  It consists of a great mass of silvery-white, bristling leaves resting upon the ground, from which rises a stalk, strung with flowers, to the height of five or six feet.  It is evidently of the Yucca type of plant, and has met with a singular transformation in the sleeping volcano’s mouth, all its harsh and savage character turned into gentleness and grace, its armament of needles and daggers giving place to a soft, silvery down.  We did not see the plant growing except at a great distance, through field-glasses, but we saw a photograph of it and a dried specimen after we came down from the summit.

It is an all day’s trip down into the crater and back, climbing over sliding sands and loose scoria, and our time was too limited to undertake it.  We passed the night on the summit in a rude stone hut, which had a fireplace where the guide made coffee, but we had only the volcanic rock for floor.  Upon this we spread our ample supply of blankets, and got such sleep as is to be had on high, cold mountain-tops, where the ribs of the mountain prove to be so much harder than one’s own ribs—­not a first-class quality of sleep, but better than none.