VISIT TO A LEPER COLONY.
Not far from our town was a leper colony and the first Saturday that
could be spared was set aside for a trip to the place. It happened
that none of the other Americans were at leisure on this particular
morning, but, rather then delay the trip or miss it altogether, the
writer, armed with a revolver, started out alone.
The road had been described so accurately by one who was supposed to
know it that it was deemed well-nigh impossible to miss the way. The
main highway was followed to the point where the by-path supposed to
lead to the settlement turned off through some bamboo thickets and a
low tropical wood. This path led straight away towards the sea-coast
where the houses of the colony were said to stand in a cocoanut grove
by the beach.
Upon arriving at the settlement, a very inhospitable reception was
received from a mangy cur that growled and showed a very uninviting
set of sharp, white teeth behind his snarling lips. The growling of
the dog had attracted the attention of an old man who, with age-bent
back, was pounding rice in a mortar about fifty yards away. He turned
slowly around and, upon seeing an intruder into the primitive quiet of
the place, gave a sharp, far-reaching call. The sound had scarcely
rung through the grove when from about a dozen of the little grass
houses dotted here and there fifteen or twenty men armed with bolos
came out and gathered around the old man. A sense of my danger flashed
upon me. Three miles from town and alone in a tropical jungle, I could
be almost instantly overcome by this band of bolo-men, and the only
report that would ever reach my people would be that I had
"disappeared." Of course, attack was by no means certain, but the
potentiality of the situation was thrilling. A drawn revolver and the
gleaming of its shining barrel had the effect of stopping the men, who
seemed to be hesitating as to a course of action, until a somewhat
dignified retreat was made to an open space in the rear from where a
less dignified and a more hasty retreat began which did not stop short
of Bacalod.
Enough had been seen, however, even in this short visit, to give
convincing proof that the settlement visited was no colony of lepers;
so, that afternoon two servant boys being taken as guides and
interpreters, another attempt was made to reach the goal desired.
This attempt was successful, and, after about two hours of walking, a
little cluster of grass huts snugly hidden by the sea-coast came into
view. As we approached, one would have thought it a gala-day. Some few
children, apparently from six to thirteen years of age, almost wholly
nude, were romping and playing in the open space around which the huts
stood, and no one would ever have thought that any cloud so horrible
as leprosy could hover over a place apparently so happy.
By the side of the path as we passed was a man and his wife setting
out potato plants. His hands were so puffed and his fingers so short
that he could scarcely use them, but he was working along as best he
could. His wife's feet were so swollen and twisted that she walked
only with the greatest difficulty. We passed them by and entered the
open space above referred to.
The children now saw us, and those of them who could darted away like
frightened rabbits, each to his own burrow. An old man who was sitting
in the warm afternoon sun on the little bamboo platform before his hut
was aroused from his lethargic repose by the scampering away of the
children. He arose, trembling upon his tottering limbs, all drawn and
twisted, and hobbled away into his hut.
The children soon recovered from their fright and began to reappear at
the doors of the houses, from which now also came the men and women of
the settlement. In a few moments we were surrounded by a circle of
human beings at once so repulsive and so pitiable that its graphic
vividness can never be accurately portrayed.
The old man referred to above, having put on a pair of snow-white
pantaloons, appeared now at the doorway of his hut, followed a few
moments later by his wife who had evidently clothed herself in the
best raiment she had. At a call from the old man, all the men, women,
and children in the settlement came out of their huts and stood in a
line before us. The old man was spokesman and in his native visayan
tongue made a heart-rending appeal for aid which we were powerless to
give. Attention was called to a leper woman, apparently about
twenty-five years of age, whose face had been attacked by the disease
and whose appearance was truly pathetic. Upon her hip was a child
about a year and a half old and, strange to say, the child showed as
yet no signs whatever of the disease.
What an indissoluble enigma is life! Here in a little cluster of grass
huts in a secluded nook of a secluded island of an all but secluded
archipelago was gathered together a little community of wretched
natives, driven by their loathsomeness from association with others
even of the same half-savage race. Yet here, men and women loved and
were married, by mutual trust if not by law, and children were born of
the union to live forever under the unspeakable horror that
overshadowed the unfortunate parents. Love, hatred, sorrow, and
joy--every passion that enters into the complex structure of the human
heart even here, in this scene of sadness and despair, was playing
apparently as freely as where misfortune and disease had never crossed
the portals of life.