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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Besides The Two
Catholic Churches, There Are A Protestant Chapel, With A Pastor,
Himself A Leper, Who Is A Regularly Ordained Minister Of The
Hawaiian Board, And Two School-Houses, Where The Twenty-Two Children
Of The Settlement Receive Instruction In Hawaiian From A Leper
Teacher.
There is a store, too, where those who are assisted by
their friends can purchase small luxuries, which are sold at just
such an advance on cost as is sufficient to clear the expense of
freight.
The taste for ornament has not died out in either sex, and
women are to be seen in Kalawao, hideous and bloated beyond
description, decorated with leis of flowers, and looking for
admiration out of their glazed and goggle eyes.
King Kalakaua and Queen Kapiolani have paid a visit to the
settlement, and were received with hearty alohas, and the music of a
leper band. The king made a short address to the lepers, the
substance of which was "that his heart was grieved with the
necessity which had separated these, his subjects, from their homes
and families, a necessity which they themselves recognised and
acquiesced in, and it should be the earnest desire of himself and
his government to render their condition in exile as comfortable as
possible." While he spoke, though it is supposed that a merciful
apathy attends upon leprosy, his hideous audience showed signs of
deep feeling, and many shed tears at his thoughtfulness in coming to
visit those, who, to use their own touching expression, were
"already in the grave."
The account which follows is from the pen of a gentleman who
accompanied the king, and visited the hospital on the same occasion,
in company with two members of the Board of Health.
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