The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1904-03-25
LEPER SETTLEMENT
ON ROBBEN ISLAND
HOW THE UNFORTUNATES OF
BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA ARE
CARED FOR NEAR CAPE TOWN.
CFrom The/Cape Times.)


Robben Island, although about seventy
five had accepted the Governments in
vitation. The morning broke lowering
and unpropitious Table Mountain was
clothed in thick, rainy vapour, and as
far as the eye could see, there was no
vestige of blue sky; nothing that would
lend hope the cheerful promise of a fair
noon. The captain of the Magnet,
which was to convey the party to its
destination, was not at all sanguine
regarding the weather conditions out
side the bar. In fact, he gave us to
understand that his boat would by no
means preserve a steady keel during
the trip. She had no cargo, and Of
course it stood to reason that she would
have no grip of the water. Still med
zeal men could take care of themselves.
and little sea sickness might be as
. beneficial to them as to other people,
The paucity of Cape Town doctors
taking advantage of the trip was gem
orally commented upon. At the same
time they may have voyaged to Robbeh
Island under similar weather conditions
on a previous occasion, and there is in
finite truth in the maxim, "Once bitten,
twice shy"
/ Leaving the Clock Tower at a little
aften 10 o'clock, the party had an op-
portunity of a look along the lines Of
the new French cruiser, the Duplex.
/ The extraordinary capped f1nnels,
which remind one of pepper boxes, of
this latest type of warship, aroused
considerable discussion. The ship has
vicious look, the stern being sharp as
/ a razor, and doubtless the bow also.
| Then we passed the French training
ship, the Duguay Trouin, an older and
more comfortable style of ship, with
many portfolios, and an oldfashioned
! frigate rig.
Beyond the breakwater the sea was,
| to say the least, lively. The Magnet is
but a cockleshell, albeit a very sea-
worthy cocklesheH. She did not come
across the great water in sections, but
sailed it all the way, and she has been
fourteen years voyaging between Cape
Town, RObben Island and Dassan ISL
and. Nevertheless, her accommoda-
ton is not very great, and somehow
under the circumstances one is glad
that so few awaited themselves of the
trip.
With the wind dead Shead, slow pro-
gress could be made. The Magnet can
lido about seven miles an hour, but she
kgasps a bit in a head sea and head
wind. The chronicle of the voyage is
uneventful, and there was but small
percentage of sickness. In fact, the
/ doctors present were, as a whole, cap
ital sailors, and although the little
steamer pitched, and rolled, and flung
herself about without any respect tor
the distinguished party on board, there
were perhaps but two or three who
wished they hadn't come.
The approach to Robben Island, as
most people know, is yet only in an
evolutionary stage. The Magnet could
not come alongside the pier and so we
had to get into the Government Wherry.
This was by no means an easy per-
Torrance, and necessitated considerable
agility on the part of those, at least, to
whom agility was almost lost accom-
iplishment Again at the pier the same
process had to be repeated.
G. Piers, the Civil Commissioner Of
the Island. received the Government
I guests. and after a slight interval for a
"pick-me-up' in the lunacy scullery'
the party boarded a couple of trans en-
route for the leper settlement. Those
trans are really only trolleys where
one sits as on an Irish jaunting car.
Three trolleys and one mule equal one
tram, according to the Robben Island
acceptation of the word. The rails are
about IS inches apart and when the
tram pulls up there is the hVeliest
screeching from the aXles that one
might wish to hear.
One of the trans (there were two Ia
alb jerked itself off the line and the
passengers on the middle trolley found
their seating arrangements give way
under them and themselves in an in
conglomerate heap. However, it Is
scarcely possible to do much mischief
on such a small tramway, and so the
passengers simply got aboard again
and sat on the floor with their knees up
to their chins.
At the leper settlement the profess
sional eagerness of the party was soon
apparent in the liberated cases, which
were visited first, the frightful progress
of this loathsome disease almost sick
ened the lay section of the party for a
time. The fingers of most Of these poor
people were completely eaten away and
in some instances the feet; so that sew
eral of them were seen moving about
on their knees. And yet one almost
wonders if the Good Angels, while per-
hitting this awful horror to be did not
strive to introduce some compensation,
no matter how trihing. Although 1t
may not seem so, the disease is pain
less. Under the finger-nails the evil
bacillus works, gnawing, gnawing away
the tissues, slowly, relentlessly, softly
even as the waters gnaw the land. The
joints decay, the flesh falls off in cor
ruption right up to the knuckles and
farther the frightful germ gnaws its
way until the hands are formless, de-
crepit, horrible. And yet these people