AMONG THE LEPERS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1161, 5 April 1884, Page 3

AMONG THE LEPERS.

The Hawaiian Kingdom has a leper population of 2000. Of these less than one-half are in custody. There is no physician on the island who knows enough about leprosy to convince any other physician that the truth has been reached. There are no white lepers under restraint, and probably not more than fifty or sixty whites are afflicted with the disease. The chief item of the budget represents the sums used for the sequestration and support of confirmed lepers. There is no cure recorded in the rather meagre history of the disease, unless we except that miraculous purification when Miriam was made whole.

When a leper is reported to the police of any district in Hawaii, an officer is sent to fetch him or her to Honolulu, where there is a detention hospital put on the outskiits of the city, and on the bank of the beautiful bay. There they are examined by the doctor, who decides whether it is a case of leprosy or not. Once declared a leper the person is civilly dead, and is incapable of suing in the courts or being sued, At the hospital there accommodation for about 120. It is filled every two months. The establishment consists of a plot of ground, say five acres, around which is a very high picket fence, with a deep ditch outside of it. Within are cottages or wards. There is little shade except that made by the houses, no sward or running water. The construction of the houses are primitive, their furnishing plain to the verge of discomfort, but they are clean.

The hospital full, a steamer comes to take to the Island of Molokai those whose condition is most advanced, there to remain until death. It was with such a party that I travelled finally to Molokai, his Excellency having at last exhausted his reasons tor my not going. It has been my lot to witness many sad scenes, but none of them approached in any way those which attended the separation of families as this handlul ot lepers sailed away for their exile. Daughters reached out their arms to mothers, whom they might not embrace; wives held up their heads for kisses, which their husbands could not give ; babes, held in arras of strangers, laughed and cooed to their mothers, to to whose breaking hearts they might not be held in one last loving clasp. And sobs— such sobs, “ alas ! that come from the depths of hearts wrung with the misery of a hopeless condition.” Presently the lines were cast off, the steamer turned her head away and steamed slowly toward the bar, I went into the little cabin set apart for the captain and closed the door, determined to hear no more and see no more of such griet. The little port was open, when suddenly it was darkened and, looking up, I saw the dark but beautiful face of a woman whose young husband was on his way to Molokai, She had swam out to intercept the steamer and being—as, indeed, are all her race—as much at home in water as on land, she had no difficulty in accomplishing her purpose. “ Ah,” she said, “ you are not a doctor nor a constable. Tell ray husband to look over the side to me and God will bless you.” I went on deck. We were steaming slowly waiting for the Government inspector to complete his task before taking his own boat for the shore. The ! lepers had become quiet, or comparatively

so, except for pain. A few women were ricking on their haunches am) moaning, a young half white girl had flung herself on the deck in a wild abandonment of grief, and behind the smoke-stack I

found the husband kneeling in prayer. His face, scratched by the leprous sores, was held towards the sun, the tears were streaming down his cheeks and diseasecut features, softening them by their agony of supplication. William,” I said, your wife is alongside. Go quietly to the place I shall point out to you, and you will see her.”

The man sprang up, and for a moment was perfectly beautiful, such a joy as came in his face. Then ho turned and ran to the place I indicated. Half an hour afterwards £ saw him alone. We were then under a full bead of steam passing Diamond Head.

“Where is she?” I asked. He pointed astern, and there, not an eighth of a mile away, we saw her, swimming towards some fishing boats, her toft black hair float.ng out behind her, and her arm every now and again waving to us goodbye. The leper settlement is generally called Molokai, but that, in fact, is the name of tho island upon which it is placed . Kalawai is the official name of the town or village. It is situate at the foot of a great ravine, through which at some time a stream of lava has poured. On either side are great precipices reselling far into the sea. At their bases tho surf heats high, sometimes breaking as high up their brown hard fronts as seventy feet. Here the N.E. trades roll up the seas they gather in a passage of two thousand miles over an unobstructed ocean. But the rciks stop them and sullenly they fall back again with a heavy monotone. The two cliffs run backward in sharp ascents till they meet over the narrow pass through which admission to the leper settlement by land is alone possible. It is as if nature had made a prison. One man could hold h thousand at bay over the bridle path, and one guard is sufficient to restrain the thousand lepers which are at this place,