The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-11-13

disfguration and or tearful havoc IA
flesh, and you have not guessed at the
terrors of Molokai. Faces which were
mere intaglios were all about. Naked
feet and hands on which no toe or finger
grew. Eyes which looked blindly from
/ bIood-red pits Of wee.
surely my soul cried, now IS the
day for His coming. The dead Lazarus
was not in greater need"
! To us, the curious whites, they gave
no heed But when some of the lepers
saw their friends-perhaps their wives or
husbands, mothers, fathers, or children,
they made an cutlery which is indescrfb-
able. Then they flung themselves on
their bosoms, and glued their lips to
those Of their loved ones Scores pros
trated themselves on the earth in the
first mad abandon of the greeting. And
all the while they kept up that most aw-
! full of native walls: "Auwe4 Auwe!'
| When the hundred who had come with
us had Joined the thousand of the dis
eassd, they FASTENED hand in hand to
their homes, all over the settlement.
They spent the day until we took ship
| ing. eating, drinking, and in stories of
| their kin. There was no restraint. For
the last time perhaps in the history of
the world they were to mix, clean and
unclean together
Hawaii had been taken by the United
States and sterner laws were to govern
them. Now those who visit the leper
colony have no contact with the afflicted.
Massive screens keep them yards apart
from one another. In contact there may
be death.
But when 1 spent my day on Molokai,
all did as they pleased. accepted the
loan of Ieper's horse, mounted the sad
die and grasped the bride he mad hano-
led for years. True, L wore gloves, but
when, the heat of the noon urging, 1 for
got precaution and DOTTED them, and re-
storing the horse to it's owner. the ieper
extended his hand in token of brotherly
feeling, 1 clasped it. to feel no ringers
meeting mine. Only the mangled stump
was there If 1 had believed the danger
of infection greater. 1 would not have
withdrawn my hand There was cour-
tesy and simple grace in the manner or
that leper which made me hide the hor-
ror / trembled with.
1 passed the hours in studying the col
ony 1t would take long to describe it
all. 1 knelt at the grave of Father Da-
mien, and after long talk with Brother
Dutton, who has taken his place, ] |
brought away with one of the last |
signed by the martyr.
/ saw in one room, under the care of |
this other Vincent de Paul, four lepers |
whose sight and senses gone, sat all day I
in darkness, never moving, never speak |
them. Their faces and forms We're like |
the fragments of statues found in an
cient places; features gone, or mere SEM
blances of the human; limbs withered
and worn away. They waited for what
Damien told them he went to-the glory
of a God that chastens but rewards.
At dusk, the whistles of the steamer
blew, and we put off in the boats TO her.
The parting was heartrending. Many
had to be torn from the arms of their
doomed friends. The shrieking was so
terrible that 1 could but think of the hell
pictured by the prophets. Here and
there the angelic form of a Catholic nun
was seen. soothing the saddened souls
Of their charges.
When in the last boat, 1 left the beach
If Kalaupapa, my ears were filled with
the wretchedness, my spirit cast down
~ the utter hopelessness of the physical
and mental agony
L recalled what Robert Louis Steven s
son, who knew these people, wrote:
TO see the infinite pity of this place, 7
The mangled limbs the devastated face,
rhe innocent sufferer smiling at the rod
4 fool were tempted to deny his God. Y
lie sees he shrinks. But if he gaze ! .
again,
20 beauty springing from the breast of c
pain!
he marks the Sisters on the mournful
shores;
And even fool is silent and adores." {
Cathedral Chronicle. 8