_Kalawao_, _Molokai_ [_May_ 1889].
DEAR FANNY,—I had a lovely sail up. Captain Cameron and Mr. Gilfillan,
both born in the States, yet the first still with a strong Highland, and
the second still with a strong Lowland accent, were good company; the
night was warm, the victuals plain but good. Mr. Gilfillan gave me his
berth, and I slept well, though I heard the sisters sick in the next
stateroom, poor souls. Heavy rolling woke me in the morning; I turned in
all standing, so went right on the upper deck. The day was on the peep
out of a low morning bank, and we were wallowing along under stupendous
cliffs. As the lights brightened, we could see certain abutments and
buttresses on their front where wood clustered and grass grew brightly.
But the whole brow seemed quite impassable, and my heart sank at the
sight. Two thousand feet of rock making 19° (the Captain guesses) seemed
quite beyond my powers. However, I had come so far; and, to tell you the
truth, I was so cowed with fear and disgust that I dared not go back on
the adventure in the interests of my own self-respect. Presently we came
up with the leper promontory: lowland, quite bare and bleak and harsh, a
little town of wooden houses, two churches, a landing-stair, all
unsightly, sour, northerly, lying athwart the sunrise, with the great
wall of the pali cutting the world out on the south. Our lepers were
sent on the first boat, about a dozen, one poor child very horrid, one
white man, leaving a large grown family behind him in Honolulu, and then
into the second stepped the sisters and myself. I do not know how it
would have been with me had the sisters not been there. My horror of the
horrible is about my weakest point; but the moral loveliness at my elbow
blotted all else out; and when I found that one of them was crying, poor
soul, quietly under her veil, I cried a little myself; then I felt as
right as a trivet, only a little crushed to be there so uselessly. I
thought it was a sin and a shame she should feel unhappy; I turned round
to her, and said something like this: ‘Ladies, God Himself is here to
give you welcome. I’m sure it is good for me to be beside you; I hope it
will be blessed to me; I thank you for myself and the good you do me.’
It seemed to cheer her up; but indeed I had scarce said it when we were
at the landing-stairs, and there was a great crowd, hundreds of (God save
us!) pantomime masks in poor human flesh, waiting to receive the sisters
and the new patients.
Every hand was offered: I had gloves, but I had made up my mind on the
boat’s voyage _not_ to give my hand; that seemed less offensive than the
gloves. So the sisters and I went up among that crew, and presently I
got aside (for I felt I had no business there) and set off on foot across
the promontory, carrying my wrap and the camera. All horror was quite
gone from me: to see these dread creatures smile and look happy was
beautiful. On my way through Kalaupapa I was exchanging cheerful
_alohas_ with the patients coming galloping over on their horses; I was
stopping to gossip at house-doors; I was happy, only ashamed of myself
that I was here for no good. One woman was pretty, and spoke good
English, and was infinitely engaging and (in the old phrase) towardly;
she thought I was the new white patient; and when she found I was only a
visitor, a curious change came in her face and voice—the only sad thing,
morally sad, I mean—that I met that morning. But for all that, they tell
me none want to leave. Beyond Kalaupapa the houses became rare; dry
stone dykes, grassy, stony land, one sick pandanus; a dreary country;
from overhead in the little clinging wood shogs of the pali chirruping of
birds fell; the low sun was right in my face; the trade blew pure and
cool and delicious; I felt as right as ninepence, and stopped and chatted
with the patients whom I still met on their horses, with not the least
disgust. About half-way over, I met the superintendent (a leper) with a
horse for me, and O, wasn’t I glad! But the horse was one of those
curious, dogged, cranky brutes that always dully want to go somewhere
else, and my traffic with him completed my crushing fatigue. I got to
the guest-house, an empty house with several rooms, kitchen, bath, etc.
There was no one there, and I let the horse go loose in the garden, lay
down on the bed, and fell asleep.
Dr. Swift woke me and gave me breakfast, then I came back and slept again
while he was at the dispensary, and he woke me for dinner; and I came
back and slept again, and he woke me about six for supper; and then in
about an hour I felt tired again, and came up to my solitary guest-house,
played the flageolet, and am now writing to you. As yet, you see, I have
seen nothing of the settlement, and my crushing fatigue (though I believe
that was moral and a measure of my cowardice) and the doctor’s opinion
make me think the pali hopeless. ‘You don’t look a strong man,’ said the
doctor; ‘but are you sound?’ I told him the truth; then he said it was
out of the question, and if I were to get up at all, I must be carried
up. But, as it seems, men as well as horses continually fall on this
ascent: the doctor goes up with a change of clothes—it is plain that to
be carried would in itself be very fatiguing to both mind and body; and I
should then be at the beginning of thirteen miles of mountain road to be
ridden against time. How should I come through? I hope you will think
me right in my decision: I mean to stay, and shall not be back in
Honolulu till Saturday, June first. You must all do the best you can to
make ready.
Dr. Swift has a wife and an infant son, beginning to toddle and run, and
they live here as composed as brick and mortar—at least the wife does, a
Kentucky German, a fine enough creature, I believe, who was quite amazed
at the sisters shedding tears! How strange is mankind! Gilfillan too, a
good fellow I think, and far from a stupid, kept up his hard Lowland
Scottish talk in the boat while the sister was covering her face; but I
believe he knew, and did it (partly) in embarrassment, and part perhaps
in mistaken kindness. And that was one reason, too, why I made my speech
to them. Partly, too, I did it, because I was ashamed to do so, and
remembered one of my golden rules, ‘When you are ashamed to speak, speak
up at once.’ But, mind you, that rule is only golden with strangers;
with your own folks, there are other considerations. This is a strange
place to be in. A bell has been sounded at intervals while I wrote, now
all is still but a musical humming of the sea, not unlike the sound of
telegraph wires; the night is quite cool and pitch dark, with a small
fine rain; one light over in the leper settlement, one cricket whistling
in the garden, my lamp here by my bedside, and my pen cheeping between my
inky fingers.
Next day, lovely morning, slept all night, 80° in the shade, strong,
sweet Anaho trade-wind.