A VISIT TO THE LEPERS. 



299 



felt again that they were lepers, the outcasts of society, and 

 must not contaminate us with their touch. A few cheerful 

 words of inquiry from the physician, Dr. Trousseau, addressed 

 to individuals as to their particular cases, broke the embar- 

 rassment of this first meeting, and soon the crowd were chatting 

 and laughing just like any other crowd of thoughtless Hawaiians, 

 and with but few exceptions, these unfortunate exiles showed 

 no signs of the settled melancholy that would naturally be 

 looked for from people so hopelessly situated. Very happy 

 were they when spoken to, and quite ready to answer any 

 questions. We saw numbers whom we had known in years 

 past, and who, having disappeared, we had thought dead. 

 One we had known as a Representative, and a veiy intelligent 

 one, too, in the Legislature of 1868. On greeting him as an 

 old-time acquaintance, he observed, c Yes, we meet again — in 

 this living grave ! ' He is a man of no little consideration 

 among the people, being entrusted by the Board of Health 

 with the care of the store which is kept here for the sale of 

 such goods as the people require. All do not appear to be 

 lepers who are leprous. We saw numbers who might pass 

 along our streets any day without being suspected of the taint. 

 They had it, however, in one way or another. Sometimes on 

 the extremities only, eating away the flesh and rotting the 

 bones of the hands or feet ; and sometimes only appearing in 

 black and indurated spots on the skin, noticed only on a 

 somewhat close examination. This last sort is said to be the 

 worst, as being most surely fatal and easiest transmitted. We 

 saw women who had the disease in this stage, walking about, 

 whom it was difficult to believe were lepers. 



" If our sensibilities were shocked at the sight of the crowd 

 of lepers we had met at the beach, walking about in physical 

 strength and activity, how shall we describe our sensations in 

 looking upon these loathsome creatures in the hospital, in 

 whom it was indeed hard to recognise anything human ? The 

 rooms were cleanly kept and well ventilated, but the atmo- 

 sphere within was pervaded with the sickening odour of the 

 grave. At each end, squatted or lying prone on their respec- 

 tive mats or mattresses, were the yet breathing corpses of 

 lepers in the last stages of various forms of the disease, who 

 glanced inquisitively at us for a moment out of their ghoul-like 

 eyes — those who were not already beyond seeing — and then 

 withdrew within their dreadful selves. Was there ever a more 

 pitiful sight ? 



