H.H. THE MAHARAJAH OF PATIALA ON HIS FAVOURITE RACER. Page 320.
I have always believed that charity should begin at home. And I believe it still. But the lepers are a people apart. Their misery cries out above all other human misery. Science and love should unite their utmost strength to wipe this great and antique curse off the face of our earth. If you think I exaggerate, when I say that there is no human misery that compares with the misery of leprosy, go among the lepers and see.
And what shall I say of the man and woman who are devoting their lives to those Subathu lepers? They were people of unusual culture—people who would have been first among almost any of their fellows, and they, who were not fanatics, but healthy, wholesome human creatures had elected to live with and for the lepers. I felt, when I saw them last, on the steps of their bungalow, that I could cover their hands with kisses and bless them. I feel so still.
There are no words that would even partly describe the agonies of those lepers. Some of them moaned, some prayed, some wept, some only crouched on their beds and waited for death.
One poor fellow I shall never forget. He belonged to the highest Brahmin caste. He would no more have eaten with me, nor have let me touch his chattee, than he would have jumped into a river of fire. But his Brahmin courtesy he never laid aside for a moment. When I came to the door of his hut, he invariably struggled on to his feetless legs and cried me a smiling “salaam.”
One morning we journeyed on to Kausali. It is a wonderful place, high, high on the hills. We were there a week or more, and then we came sadly back to Subathu, for we had left our little baby in the cantonment cemetery at Kausali.
CHAPTER XXXVI
IN THE OFFICERS’ MESS