The Hawaiian Archipelago - Six Months Among The Palm Groves, Coral Reefs, And Volcanoes Of The Sandwich Islands By Isabella L. Bird
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Yet Molokai Is Only Enchanting In The Distance, For Its Blue Petals
Enfold 400 Lepers Doomed To Endless Isolation, And 300 More Are
Shortly To Be Weeded Out And Sent Thither.
In to-day's paper
appeared the painful notice, "All lepers are required to report
themselves to the Government health
Officer within fourteen days
from this date for inspection, and final banishment to Molokai." It
is hoped that leprosy may be "stamped out" by these stringent
measures, but the leprous taint must be strong in many families, and
the social, gregarious natives smoke each other's pipes and wear
each other's clothes, and either from fatalism or ignorance have
disregarded all precautions regarding this woful disease; and now
that measures are being taken for the isolation of lepers, they are
concealing them under mats and in caves and woods. This forlorn
malady, called here Chinese leprosy, in the cases that I have seen,
confers nothing of the white, scaly look attributed to Syrian
leprosy; but the face is red, puffed, bloated, and shining, and the
eyes glazed, and I am told that in its advanced stage the swollen
limbs decay and drop off. It is a fresh item of the infinite curse
which has come upon this race, and with Molokai in sight the
Hesperides vanished, and I ceased to believe that the Fortunate
Islands exist here or elsewhere on this weary earth.
My destination was the industrial training and boarding school for
girls, taught and superintended by two English ladies of Miss
Sellon's sisterhood, Sisters Mary Clara and Phoebe; and I found it
buried under the shade of the finest candlenut trees I have yet
seen. A rude wooden cross in front is a touching and fitting emblem
of the Saviour, for whom these pious women have sacrificed friends,
sympathy, and the social intercourse and amenities which are within
daily reach of our workers at home. The large house, which is
either plastered stone or adobe, contains the dormitories, visitors'
room, and oratory, and three houses at the back, all densely shaded,
are used as schoolroom, cook-house, laundry, and refectory. There
is a playground under some fine tamarind trees, and an adobe wall
encloses, without secluding, the whole. The visitors' room is about
twelve feet by eight feet, very bare, with a deal table and three
chairs in it, but it was vacant, and I crossed to the large, shady,
airy schoolroom, where I found the senior sister engaged in
teaching, while the junior was busy in the cook-house. These ladies
in eight years have never left Lahaina. Other people may think it
necessary to leave its broiling heat and seek health and recreation
on the mountains, but their work has left them no leisure, and their
zeal no desire, for a holiday. A very solid, careful English
education is given here, as well as a thorough training in all
housewifely arts, and in the more important matters of modest dress
and deportment, and propriety in language. There are thirty-seven
boarders, native and half-native, and mixed native and Chinese,
between the ages of four and eighteen.
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