owing the heavens into their place, and
fastening them so that they could not fall, he learned that he had
opened a way for the sun-god to come up from the lower world and rapidly
run across the blue vault. This made two troubles for men--the heat of
the sun was very great and the journey too quickly over. Maui planned to
capture the sun and punish him for thinking so little about the welfare
of mankind.

[Illustration: Iao Mountain From the Sea.]

As Rev. A. O. Forbes, a missionary among the Hawaiians, relates, Maui's
mother was troubled very much by the heedless haste of the sun. She had
many kapa-cloths to make, for this was the only kind of clothing known
in Hawaii, except sometimes a woven mat or a long grass fringe worn as a
skirt. This native cloth was made by pounding the fine bark of
certain trees with wooden mallets until the fibres were beaten and
ground into a wood pulp. Then she pounded the pulp into thin sheets from
which the best sleeping mats and clothes could be fashioned. These kapa
cloths had to be thoroughly dried, but the days were so short that by
the time she had spread out the kapa the sun had heedlessly rushed
across the sky and gone down into the under-world, and all the cloth had
to be gathered up again and cared for until another day should come.
There were other troubles. "The food could not be prepared and cooked in
one day. Even an incantation to the gods could not be chanted through
ere they were overtaken by darkness."

This was very discouraging and caused great suffering, as well as much
unnecessary trouble and labor. Many complaints were made against the
thoughtless sun.

Maui pitied his mother and determined to make the sun go slower that the
days might be long enough to satisfy the needs of men. Therefore, he
went over to the northwest of the island on which he lived. This was Mt.
Iao, an extinct volcano, in which lies one of the most beautiful and
picturesque valleys of the Hawaiian Islands. He climbed the ridges until
he could see the course of the sun as it passed over the island. He saw
that the sun came up the eastern side of Mt. Haleakala. He crossed over
the plain between the two mountains and climbed to the top of Mt.
Haleakala. There he watched the burning sun as it came up from Koolau
and passed directly over the top of the mountain. The summit of
Haleakala is a great extinct crater twenty miles in circumference, and
nearly twenty-five hundred feet in depth. There are