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In every city and county hospital for poor people in the United States, or in similar institutions in other countries, sights as terrible as those in Molokai can be witnessed, and the sum total of these sights is vastly more terrible.
But it gave the exiles something to look forward to, which meant a great deal in their lives. Now anyone would have thought that, after all Father Damien had done and obtained for them, the lepers of Molokai would have been filled with gratitude to their priest.
When at Molokai, the declared leper has the privilege of re- examination, and patients are continually coming back to Honolulu for that purpose. The steamer that took me to Molokai had on board two returning lepers, both young women, one of whom had come to Honolulu to settle up some property she owned, and the other had come to Honolulu to see her sick mother.
The world, in your despite, may perhaps owe you something, if your letter be the means of substituting once for all a credible likeness for a wax abstraction. For, if that world at all remember you, on the day when Damien of Molokai shall be named a Saint, it will be in virtue of one work: your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage. You may ask on what authority I speak.
Inland there are dense groves of trees, huge tree-ferns, and thick matted creepers. Here brilliant-plumaged birds have their home, while about the cliffs fly the long-tailed white bo'sun birds; but as a whole Molokai cannot compare in beauty with the islands which Father Damien had left behind him. A hospital had been built for the worst cases, and when Father Damien arrived it was quite full.
In his own words is a report of the state of things at Molokai sixteen years ago, and I think a portion will be interesting: "By special providence of our Divine Lord, who during His public life showed a particular sympathy for the lepers, my way was traced toward Kalawao in May, 1873. I was then thirty-three years of age, enjoying a robust good health.
Molokai, unlike many of the other islands, was very badly off for water, and the lepers had to carry from some distance all that they used. Under these circumstances it was perhaps natural that they should use as little as possible.
And yes Doc Strowbridge knew it. He was the federal physician, and he had developed the leper eye. You see, part of his business was to examine suspects and order them to the receiving station at Honolulu. And Stephen Kaluna had developed the leper eye. The disease ran strong in his family, and four or five of his relatives were already on Molokai. "The trouble arose over Stephen Kaluna's sister.
In order that no doubtful cases may be sent to Molokai there is a hospital at Kalihi, near Honolulu, where the preliminary examinations are made, and where Dr. Trousseau, the skillful physician of the Board of Health, son of the famous Paris physician of the same name, retains people about whom he is uncertain.
He never cheated, never lied, never took an unfair advantage of anyone; but he was ambitious, strong-willed, a bold fighter and a tough adversary a fellow who would never "say die"; and who, therefore, succeeded. As we approached Molokai I found that the slow work of centuries had nearly covered its lava with verdure. At dawn we were opposite Kalaupapa.
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