"The leper settlement is on a plain, which is surrounded by mountains on three sides and the sea on the fourth. The mountains are so rugged as to be impassable except at a few points, which are always carefully guarded. The sea-front is also watched, so that escape from the settlement is practically impossible.
IMPLEMENTS OF DOMESTIC LIFE.
a, Calabash for poi.—b, Calabash for fish.—c, Water-bottle.—d, d, Poi mallets.—e, Poi trough.—f, Native bracelet—g, Fiddle.—h, Flute.—i, i, Drums.
"Any person in the Hawaiian kingdom suspected of leprosy is arrested by the authorities, and if a medical examination shows that he is afflicted with the disease he is sent to Molokai. The sentence is perpetual, leprosy being considered incurable except in its earliest stages. A man sent to Molokai is considered dead. His wife may obtain a decree of divorce and marry again if she likes, and his estate is handed over to the courts and administered upon as though he had ceased to exist. Great care is exercised to prevent the banishment of any one about whose case there is any doubt. There is a hospital near Honolulu where all doubtful cases are sent, and the physician in charge keeps them there until the certainty of the presence or absence of the disease is settled beyond question.
HAWAIIAN PIPE.
"The doctor who accompanied us through the settlement assured us that leprosy is neither epidemic nor contagious in the ordinary sense of the latter word. It can only be communicated by an abraded surface coming in contact with a leprous sore; and he said that the practice among the natives of many persons smoking the same pipe had done much to spread the disease. He shook hands freely with the victims of leprosy during our visit, and did not take the trouble to wear gloves, even when the hands of the others were covered with sores.