There Is Nothing Lacking; The Very Leper Finds An Inn
Here." "I Have No Objection To Your Showing Me The
House," I
replied, "but it must be at a distance, for enter it I will not."
Thereupon he conducted me
Down the road which leads towards Padron
and Vigo, and pointing to two or three huts, exclaimed "That is our
leper-house." "It appears a miserable place," I replied: "what
accommodation may there be for the patients, and who attends to
their wants?" "They are left to themselves," answered the
bookseller, "and probably sometimes perish from neglect: the place
at one time was endowed and had rents which were appropriated to
its support, but even these have been sequestered during the late
troubles. At present, the least unclean of the lepers generally
takes his station by the road side, and begs for the rest. See
there he is now."
And sure enough the leper in his shining scales, and half naked,
was seated beneath a ruined wall. We dropped money into the hat of
the unhappy being, and passed on.
"A bad disorder that," said my friend. "I confess that I, who have
seen so many of them, am by no means fond of the company of lepers.
Indeed, I wish that they would never enter my shop, as they
occasionally do to beg. Nothing is more infectious, as I have
heard, than leprosy: there is one very virulent species, however,
which is particularly dreaded here, the elephantine: those who die
of it should, according to law, be burnt, and their ashes scattered
to the winds:
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