"KALAWAO, MOLOKAI, HAWAIIAN ISLANDS,
"_January 1, 188--_.
"DEAR MOTHER,--I entreat you not to let the sight of this strange
handwriting, instead of one that must be so familiar, fill you with too
much alarm. I hasten to assure you that before my letter closes you will
understand why Sister Dolorosa has not written herself.
"Since the hour when the vessel sailed from the American port, bearing
to us that young life as a consecrated helper in our work among these
suffering outcasts of the human race, I know that your thoughts and
prayers have followed her with unceasing anxiety; so that first I should
give you tidings that the vessel reached Honolulu in safety. I should
tell you also that she had a prosperous voyage, and that she is now
happy--far happier than when she left you. I know, likewise, that your
imagination has constantly hovered about this island, and that you have
pictured it to yourself as the gloomiest of all spots in the universe of
God; so that in the next place I should try to remove this impression by
giving you some description of the island itself, which has now become
her unchanging home.
"The island of Molokai, then, on which the leper settlement has been
located by the Government, is long, and shaped much like the leaf of the
willow-tree. The Sandwich Islands, as you well know, are a group of
volcanoes out of which the fires have for the most part long since died.
Molokai, therefore, is really but a mountain of cooled lava, half of
which perhaps is beneath the level of the sea. The two leper villages
are actually situated in the cup of an ancient crater. The island is
very low along the southern coast, and slopes gradually to its greatest
altitude on the northern ridge, from which the descent to the sea is in
places all but perpendicular. It is between the bases of these northern
cliffs and the sea that the villages are built. In the rear of them is a
long succession of towering precipices and wild ravines, that are solemn
and terrible to behold; and in front of them there is a coast-line so
rough with pointed rocks that as the waves rush in upon them spray is
often thrown to the height of fifty or a hundred feet. It is this that
makes the landing at times so dangerous; and at other times, when a
storm has burst, so fatal. So that shipwrecks are not unknown, dear
Mother, and sometimes add to the sadness of life in this place.
"But from this description you would get only a mistaken idea of the
aspect of the island. It is sunny and full of tropical loveliness. The
lapse of centuries has in places covered the lava with exquisite
verdure. Soft breezes blow here, about the dark cliffs hang purple
atmospheres, and above them drift pink and white clouds. Sometimes the
whole island is veiled in golden mist. Beautiful streams fall down its
green precipices into the sea, and the sea itself is of the most
brilliant blue. In its depths are growths of pure white corals, which
are the homes of fishes of gorgeous colours.
"If I should speak no longer of the island, but of the people, I could
perhaps do something further still to dissipate the dread with which you
and other strangers must regard us. The inhabitants are a simple,
generous, happy race; and there are many spots in this world--many in
Europe and Asia, perhaps some in your own land--where the scenes of
suffering and death are more poignant and appalling. The lepers live for
the most part in decent white cottages. Many are the happy faces that
are seen among them; so that, strange as it may seem, healthy people
would sometimes come here to live if the laws did not forbid. So much
has Christianity done that one may now be buried in consecrated ground.
"If all this appears worldly and frivolous, dear Mother, forgive me! If
I have chosen to withhold from you news of her, of whom alone I know you
are thinking, it is because I have wished to give you as bright a
picture as possible. Perhaps you will thus become the better prepared
for what is to follow.
"So that before I go further, I shall pause again to describe to you one
spot which is the loveliest on the island. About a mile and a half from
the village of Kalawao there is a rocky point which is used as an
irregular landing-place when the sea is wild. Just beyond this point
there is an inward curve of the coast, making an inlet of the sea; and
from the water's edge there slopes backward into the bosom of the island
a deep ravine. Down this ravine there falls and winds a gleaming white
cataract, and here the tropical vegetation grows most beautiful. The
trees are wreathed with moist creepers; the edges and crevices of the
lava blocks are fringed with ferns and moss. Here the wild ginger blooms
and the crimson lehua. Here grow trees of orange and palm and punhala
groves. Here one sees the rare honey-bird with its plumage of scarlet
velvet, the golden plover, and the beautiful white bos'un-bird, wheeling
about the black cliff heights. The spot is as beautiful as a scene in
some fairy tale. When storms roll in from the sea the surf flows far
back into this ravine, and sometimes--after the waters have subsided--a
piece of wreckage from the ocean is left behind.
"Forgive me once more, O dear Mother! if again I seem to you so idle and
unmeaning in my words. But I have found it almost impossible to go on;
and, besides, I think you will thank me, after you have read my letter
through, for telling you first of this place.
"From the day of our first learning that there was a young spirit among
you who had elected, for Christ's sake, to come here and labour with us,
we had counted the days till she should arrive. The news had spread
throughout the leper settlement. Father Damien had made it known to the
lepers in Kalawao, Father Wendolen had likewise told it among the lepers
in Kalapaupa, and the Protestant ministers spoke of it to their flocks.
Thus her name had already become familiar to hundreds of them, and many
a prayer had been offered up for her safety.
"Once a week there comes to Molokai from Honolulu a little steamer
called _Mokolii_. When it reached here last Saturday morning it brought
the news that just before it sailed from Honolulu the vessel bearing
Sister Dolorosa had come into port. She had been taken in charge by the
Sisters until the _Mokolii_ should return and make the next trip. I
should add that the steamer leaves at about five o'clock in the
afternoon, and that it usually reaches here at about dawn of the
following morning in ordinary weather.
"And now, dear Mother, I beseech you to lay my letter aside! Do not read
further now. Lay it aside, and do not take it up again until you have
sought in prayer the consolation of our divine religion for the sorrows
of our lives.
"I shall believe that you have done this, and that, as you now go on
with the reading of my letter, you have gained the fortitude to hear
what I have scarcely the power to write. Heaven knows that in my poor
way I have sought to prepare you!
"As it was expected that the steamer would reach the island about dawn
on Saturday morning, as usual, it had been arranged that many of us
should be at the landing-place to give her welcome. But about midnight
one of the terrific storms which visit this region suddenly descended,
enveloping the heavens, that had been full of the light of the stars, in
impenetrable darkness. We were sleepless with apprehension that the
vessel would be driven upon the rocks--such was the direction of the
storm--long before it could come opposite the villages: and a few hours
before day Father Damien, accompanied by Father Conradi, Brother James,
and Brother Joseph, went down to the coast. Through the remaining hours
of the night they watched and waited, now at one point, and now at
another, knowing that the vessel could never land in such a storm. As
the dawn broke they followed up the coast until they came opposite that
rocky point of which I have already spoken as being an irregular
landing-place.
"Here they were met by two or three men who were drenched with the sea,
and just starting towards the villages, and from them they learned that,
an hour or two before, the steamer had been driven upon the hidden rocks
of the point. It had been feared that it would soon be sunk or dashed to
pieces, and as quickly as possible a boat had been put off, in which
were the leper girls that were being brought from Honolulu. There was
little hope that it would ever reach the shore, but it was the last
chance of life. In this boat, dear Mother, Sister Dolorosa also was
placed. Immediately afterwards a second boat was put off, containing the
others that were on board.
"Of the fate of the first boat they had learned nothing. Their own had
been almost immediately capsized, and, so far as they knew, they were
the sole survivors. The Hawaiians are the most expert of swimmers, being
almost native to the sea; and since the distance was short, and only
these survived, you will realise how little chance there was for any
other.
"During the early hours of the morning, which broke dark and
inexpressibly sad for us, a few bodies were found washed ashore, among
them those of two leper girls of Honolulu. But our search for her long
proved unavailing. At length Father Damien suggested that we follow up
the ravine which I have described, and it was thither that he and
Brother Joseph and I accordingly went. Father Damien thought it well
that I should go with them.
"It was far inland, dear Mother, that at last we found her. She lay
outstretched on a bare, black rock of lava, which sloped upward from the
sea. Her naked white feet rested on the green moss that fringed its
lower edge, and her head was sheltered from the burning sun by branches
of ferns. Almost over her eyes--the lids of which were stiff with the
salt of the ocean--there hung a spray of white poppies. It was as though
nature would be kind to her in death.
"At the sight of her face, so young, and having in it the purity and the
peace of Heaven, we knelt down around her without a word, and for a
while we could do nothing but weep. Surely nothing so spotless was ever
washed ashore on this polluted island! If I sinned, I pray to be
forgiven; but I found a strange joy in thinking that the corruption of
this terrible disease had never been laid upon her. Heaven had accepted
in advance her faithful spirit, and had spared her the long years of
bodily suffering.
"At Father Damien's direction Brother Joseph returned to the village for
a bier and for four lepers who should be strong enough to bear it. When
they came we laid her on it, and bore her back to the village, where
Mother Marianne took the body in charge and prepared it for burial.
"How shall I describe her funeral? The lepers were her pall-bearers. The
news of the shipwreck had quickly spread throughout the settlement, and
these simple, generous people yield themselves so readily to the emotion
of the hour. When the time arrived, it seemed that all who could walk
had come to follow her to the churchyard. It was a moving sight--the
long, wavering train of that death-stricken throng, whose sufferings had
so touched the pity of our Lord when He was on earth, and the desolation
of whose fate she had come to lessen. There were the young and the old
alike, Protestants and Catholics without distinction, children with
their faces so strangely aged with ravages of the leprosy, those
advanced in years with theirs so mutilated and marred. Others, upon whom
the leprosy had made such advances that they were too weak to walk, sat
in their cottage doors and lifted their husky voices in singing that
wailing native hymn in which they bemoan their hopeless fate. Some of
the women, after a fashion of their own, wore large wreaths of blue
blossoms and green leaves about their withered faces.
"And it was thus that we lepers--I say we lepers because I am one of
them, since I cannot expect long to escape the disease--it was thus that
we lepers followed her to the graveyard in the rock by the blue sea,
where Father Damien with his own hands had helped to dig her grave. And
there, dear Mother, all that is mortal of her now rests. But we know
that ere this she has heard the words: 'I was sick, and ye visited me.'
"Mother Marianne would herself have written, but she was called away to
the Leproserie.
"SISTER AGATHA."