The lepers of Molokai / by Charles Warren Stoddard.

  • Charles Warren Stoddard
Date:
[1885], ©1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The lepers of Molokai / by Charles Warren Stoddard. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    MAY 23 ]92I THE LEPERS OF MOLOKAI. P ROLOGUE. (fjBHE afternoon was waning in the tropical sea- ^^ port: already the heat was tempered and the glare softened by the humidity of the slowly ap- proaching dusk. A little wdiile and the sun would sink silently into the immeasurable abyss beyond the waves, and the brief, delicious twilight, bathed for a moment only in the splendor of the after- glow, would adorn itself with clusters of trembling stars. At such an hour, beguiled with reveries and soothed by the exquisite fragrance that exhales at dew-fall, I was startled by a piercing cry, that seemed the last agonizing protest of a riven heart. Not one voice only broke upon the stillness, but another and another, and yet another, until a chorus of despair rang shrilly over the low-roofed cottages in the grove that stood between me and the not far-distant shore. With no little emotion I hurried seaward, and speedily overtook a melan- choly procession of weeping women following a