The isolation enforced by the Fijians appears to correspond with the practice of the Hebrews and Philistines, who drove the pauper lepers without the city gate, but let the high-born leper alone. Ratu Joseva, Thakombau's son, like Naaman, still maintained a household of retainers. The lot of the isolated leper in Fiji is not a very hard one while he has strength to move about. A hut is built for him in the bush; firewood is abundant; wild yams are to be had for the digging, wild fowls and pigs for the trapping; he can pick the best land for his plantation. But when the poor wretch loses the use of his legs an awful fate may await him. A horrible story is told of a leper on the Tailevu coast who had lost all sensation in his feet. Waking by his fire one morning he noticed a smell of roasting flesh, and wondered for some moments whence it came, until, when he moved himself to look out of the doorway, he noticed that the logs in the fire-place stirred, and saw that his own feet had been lying in the fire, and were burned to cinders.
FOOTNOTES:
[95] The greater part of this chapter is drawn from an able paper contributed to the Folklore Journal, 1895, by Dr. Bolton G. Corney, Chief Medical Officer of Fiji, who has made a special study of the subject.
[96] White.
[97] Manson, Tropical Diseases.
[98] Voyage aux iles du Grand Ocean, par. J. A. Moerenhout. (Vol. ii, p. 156.) Paris, 1837.