Summer Cruising in the South Seas

by Charles Warren Stoddard

One morning he disappeared. I was without the consolations of a breakfast, even. I made my toilet, went to my portmanteau for my purse,—for I had decided upon a visit to the baker,—when lo! part of my slender means had mysteriously disappeared. Joe was gone, and the money also. All day I thought about it. In the morning, after a very long and miserable night, I woke up, and when I opened my eyes, there, in the doorway, stood Joe, in a brand-new suit of clothes, including boots and hat. He was gorgeous beyond description, and seemed overjoyed to see me, and as merry as though nothing unusual had happened. I was quite startled at this apparition. "Joseph!" I said in my severest tones, and then turned over and looked away from him. Joe evaded the subject in the most delicate manner, and was never so interesting as at that moment. He sang his specialities, and played clumsily upon his bamboo flute,—to soothe me, I suppose,—and wanted me to eat a whole flat pie which he had brought home as a peace-offering, buttoned tightly under his jacket. I saw I must strike at once, if I struck at all; so I said, "Joe, what on earth did you do with that money?" Joe said he had replenished his wardrobe, and bought the flat pie especially for me. "Joseph," I said, with great dignity, "do you know that you have been stealing, and that it is highly sinful to steal, and may result in something unpleasant in the world to come?" Joe said, "Yes," pleasantly, though I hardly think he meant it; and then he added, mildly, "that he couldn't lie,"—which was a glaring falsehood,—"but wanted me to be sure that he took the money, and so had come back to tell me."

"Joseph," I said, "you remind me of our noble Washington"; and, to my amazement, Joe was mortified. He didn't, of course, know who Washington was, but he suspected that I was ridiculing him. He came to the bed and haughtily insisted upon my taking the little change he had received from his customers, but I implored him to keep it, as I had no use at all for it, and, as I assured him, I much preferred hearing it jingle in his pocket.

The next day I sailed out of Lahaina, and Joe came to the beach with his new trousers tucked into his new boots, while he waved his new hat violently in a final adieu, much to the envy and admiration of a score of hatless urchins, who looked upon Joe as the glass of fashion, and but little lower than the angels. When I entered the boat to set sail, a tear stood in Joe's bright eye, and I think he was really sorry to part with me; and I don't wonder at it, because our housekeeping experiences were new to him,—and, I may add, not unprofitable.

II.

SOME months of mellow and beautiful weather found me wandering here and there among the islands, when the gales came on again, and I was driven about homeless, and sometimes friendless, until, by-and-by, I heard of an opportunity to visit Molokai,—an island seldom visited by the tourist,—where, perhaps, I could get a close view of a singularly sad and interesting colony of lepers.

The whole island is green, but lonely. As you ride over its excellent turnpike, you see the ruins of a nation that is passing, like a shadow, out of sight. Deserted garden-patches, crumbling walls, and roofs tumbled into the one state-chamber of the house, while knots of long grass wave at half-mast in the chinks and crannies. A land of great traditions, of magic, and witchcraft, and spirits. A fertile and fragrant solitude. How I enjoyed it; and yet how it was all telling upon me, in its own way! One cannot help feeling sad there, for he seems to be living and moving in a long reverie, out of which he dreads to awaken to a less pathetic life. I rode a day or two among the solemn and reproachful ruins with inexpressible complacence, and, having finally climbed a series of verdant and downy hills, and ridden for twenty minutes in a brisk shower, came suddenly upon the brink of a great precipice, three thousand feet in the air. My horse instinctively braced himself, and I nervously jerked the bridle square up to my breast-bone, as I found we were poised between heaven and earth, upon a trembling pinnacle of rock. A broad peninsular was stretched below me, covered with grassy hills; here and there clusters of brown huts were visible, and to the right, the white dots of houses to which I was hastening, for that was the leper village. To that spot were the wandering and afflicted tribes brought home to die. Once descending the narrow stairs in the cliff under me, never again could they hope to strike their tents and resume their pilgrimage; for the curse was on them, and necessity had narrowed down their sphere of action to this compass,—a solitary slope between sea and land, with the invisible sentinels of Fear and Fate for ever watching its borders.

I seemed to be looking into a fiery furnace, wherein walked the living bodies of those whom Death had already set his seal upon. What a mockery it seemed to be climbing down that crag,—through wreaths of vine, and under leafy cataracts breaking into a foam of blossoms a thousand feet below me; swinging aside the hanging parasites that obstructed the narrow way,—entering the valley of death, and the very mouth of hell, by these floral avenues!

A brisk ride of a couple of miles across the breadth of the peninsula brought me to the gate of the keeper of the settlement, and there I dismounted, and hastened into the house, to be rid of the curious crowd that had gathered to receive me. The little cottage was very comfortable, my host and hostess friends of precious memory; and with them I felt at once at home, and began the new life that every one begins when the earth seems to have been suddenly transformed into some better or worse world, and he alone survives the transformation.

Have you never had such an experience? Then go into the midst of a community of lepers; have ever before your eyes their Gorgon-like faces; see the horrors, hardly to be recognized as human, that grope about you; listen in vain for the voices that have been hushed for ever by decay; breathe the tainted atmosphere; and bear ever in mind that, while they hover about you,—forbidden to touch you, yet longing to clasp once more a hand that is perfect and pure,—the insidious seeds of the malady may be generating in your vitals, and your heart, even then, be drunk with death!

I might as well confess that I slept indifferently the first night; that I was not entirely free from nervousness the next day, as I passed through the various wards assigned to patients in every stage of decomposition. But I recovered myself in time to observe the admirable system adopted by the Hawaiian government for the protection of its unfortunate people. I used to sit by the window and see the processions of the less afflicted come for little measures of milk, morning and evening. Then there was a continuous raid upon the ointment-pot, with the contents of which they delighted to anoint themselves. Trifling disturbances sometimes brought the plaintiff and defendant to the front gate, for final judgment at the hands of their beloved keeper. And it was a constant entertainment to watch the progress of events in that singular little world of doomed spirits. They were not unhappy. I used to hear them singing every evening: their souls were singing while their bodies were falling rapidly to dust. They continued to play their games, as well as they could play them with the loss of a finger joint or a toe, from week to week: it is thus gradually and thus slowly that they died, feeling their voices growing fainter and their strength less, as the idle days passed over them and swept them to the tomb.