FATHER DAMIEN

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.  Two little spired churches, looking precisely alike, caught my eye first, and around them were dotted the white cottages of the lepers.  But the sea was too rough for us to land.  The waves dashed against the rocks, and the spray rose fifty feet into the air.

We went on to Kalawao, but were again disappointed; it was too dangerous to disembark.  Finally it was decided to put off a boat for a rocky point about a mile and a half distant from the town.  Climbing down this point we saw about twenty lepers, and “There is Father Damien!” said our purser; and, slowly moving along the hillside, I saw a dark figure with a large straw hat.  He came rather painfully down, and sat near the water-side, and we exchanged friendly signals across the waves while my baggage was being got out of the hold—­a long business, owing to the violence of the sea.  At last all was ready, and we went swinging across the waves, and finally chose a fit moment for leaping on shore.  Father Damien caught me by the hand, and a hearty welcome shone from his kindly face as he helped me up the rock.  He immediately called me by my name, “Edward,” and said it was “like everything else, a providence,” that he had met me at that irregular landing-place, for he had expected the ship to stop at Kalaupapa.

He was now forty-nine years old—­a thick-set, strongly built man, with black curly hair and short beard, turning gray.  His countenance must have been handsome, with a full, well-curved mouth and a short, straight nose; but he was now a good deal disfigured by leprosy, though not so badly as to make it anything but a pleasure to look at his bright, sensible face.  His forehead was swollen and rigid, the eyebrows gone, the nose somewhat sunk, and the ears greatly enlarged.  His hands and face looked uneven with a sort of incipient boils, and his body also showed many signs of the disease, but he assured me that he had felt little or no pain since he had tried Dr. Goto’s system of hot baths and Japanese medicine.  The bathrooms that have been provided by the Government are very nice.

A large wooden box of presents from English friends, had been unshipped with the gurjun oil.  It was, however, so large that Father Damien said it would be impossible for his lepers either to land it from the boat or to carry it to Kalawao, and that it must be returned to the steamer and landed on some voyage when the sea was quieter.  But I could not give up the pleasure of his enjoyment in its contents, so after some delay it was forced open in the boat, and the things were handed out one by one across the waves.  The lepers all came round with their poor marred faces, and the presents were carried home by them and our two selves.

As we ascended the hill on which the village is built Father Damien showed me on our left the chicken farm.  The lepers are justly proud of it, and before many days I had a fine fowl sent me for dinner, which, after a little natural timidity, I ate with thankfulness.