— 123 — 
“ Some were seated at their doors, but most shewing ghast- 
ly sores, and some were literally dying by inches aud unable 
to leave their beds. In every cabin is a coffin ready for the 
inmate, which must I should think have a depressing effect at 
first, but from habit they dont seem to mind it. It is however 
a wise precaution, as from the nature of the disease, when 
death ensues, interment must be immediate (1). Great praise 
is due to Mr Porbes for his kindly treatment to these poor 
outcasts of humanity, and it reflects great credit ou the Go- 
vernment for providing so comfortably for the poor creatures. 
This terrible plague is as yet unknown in America, and I 
pray God to keep it for ever from our shores. 
If Mr Forbes had kept a journal of his experience during 
all these years, what an awful record it would be, of this, the 
most direful ill that flesh is heir to. I have seen a good deal 
of leprosy in Spain and Portugal, also in S. America, but it 
struck me that the disease at Curieuse assumed a different 
form to any I have seen before. I was glad to turn aside, for 
there is to me something so loathsome and repulsive in this 
disease, and verily the man who has spent best part of a life 
relieving as far as possible its wearying agonies, is worthy to 
be reckoned amongst the world’s heroes. 
“ This island was formerly well covered with the Coco de 
Mer ( Lodoicea Seychellarnm ) but only their relics, in the 
curious old hard bowls remain of them, except a few that 
have been planted by the orders of Government. There is no 
(1) To shew how easily the human mind grows habituated to what we 
are accustomed to regard one of the saddest sights viz a coffin, I will 
mention that when in the Cape I was informed, that far up the country 
the Dutch Boer always keeps his coffin in his ordinary family room. As 
soon as he is a man of some substance, he goes into the forest and selects 
the finest timber tree he can find, helps to cut it down, and has a coffin 
made of most capacious demensions, for the chances are, he is over 6 feet 
high, and as he ages, will become stout in proportion. If a rich man, 
formerly it was elaborately carved. When completed it is used as a corn- 
bin ; and the Fraaw if there is one, places her milk pans on it. This is 
not I am told from any religious feeling, but that when he dies, he may 
have a coffin of good seasoned wood, that will not easily rot. I apprehend 
the origin of it was, that, as there wore no cemetries up the country, hun- 
dreds of miles formerly intervening betweeu the churches, every one was 
buried on his own farm, and if great caro was not taken to dig deep, which 
the rocky nature of the soil would often prevent, tho chances were the 
jackals would dig him out, and if his coffin was not sound, he would be 
made a meal of before it could be discovered. A termination to his relics, 
not at all agreeable to Dutch notions. 
