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Show ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON AND j THE MOLOKAI LEPERS. The recently published "Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson" contain many interesting reminiscences of the author's au-thor's eventful life. Here is his descrio- j tion of his visit to Molokai: j "PresentU- we came to the leper promontory a little town of wooden houses, two churches, a landing stair. The lepers were sent on the first boat, about a dozen, one a poor child, very livid, one white man leaving a large grown family hebind him in Honolulu. Whn we were at the landing stair there was a great crowd, hundreds of pantomime masks in human llesh waiting wait-ing to receive the Sisters and the new patients. The Sisters and I went up j among the crew, sl I set out on foot across the promontory carrying my wrap and camera. All terror was quite gone from me. To see the dread crea- tures smile and look happy was beauti- I ful. On my way through Kalauapapa I was exchanging cheeerful alohas with the patients galloping over on their horses. I was stopping a group at house doors. I was happy, only ashamed asham-ed of myself that I was here for no good. One woman was very pretty and spoke good English. She thought that I was the new white patient. Half way over I met the superintendent (a leper) . with a horse for me. I got to th i guest house. There was no one there? I so I lay down in the bed and fell asleep. Dr. Swift woke me and gave fc me breakfast. Dr. Swift has a wife f and infant son beginning to walk, and they live here as composed as brick and mortar at least the wife does a S Kentucky German, a fine -creature, I F believe, who was quite amazed at the Sisters shedding tears on their arrival, j f Second letter. "I am just home after i twelve days' journey to Molokai, seven 1 of them at the leper .settlement, where I can only say that the sight of so j z much courage, cheerfulness and devo- tion strung me too high to mind the I inflnitp ntrv nnv tpmir nf ths nichf ! I used to ride across to the Sister's home, a miracle of neatness, play a game of croquet with sevn leper girls, get a little old maid me served by the Sisters, and ride . again. I have seen sights that cannot be told and heard stories which cannot can-not be repeated, yet I never admired my poor race so much, nor, strange as it may seem, loved life more than in the settlement. A moral beauty hovers over the place. That is the only way I can express the sense that lived with me all those days. Third letter. "I am fresh just now from" the leper settlement, playing croquet cro-quet with seven leper girls, sitting and yarning with old, blind leper beachcombers beach-combers in the hospital, sickened with the spectacle of abhorrent suffering and deformation among the patients, touched to the heart by the sight of lovely effective virtues in their helpers. help-ers. No stranger time have I ever had or any so moving." |