stirred and murmured on
her passage; and I knew, without being told, this was the mother and
protagonist. Close by the sea, in the midst of the spectators, she sat
down, and raised immediately the notes of the lament. One after another
of her friends approached her. To one after the other she reached out an
arm, embraced them down, rocked awhile with them embraced, and
passionately kissed them in the island fashion, with the pressed face.
The leper girl at last, as at some signal, rose from her seat apart,
drew near, was inarmed like the rest, and with a small knot (I suppose
of the most intimate) held some while in a general clasp. Through all,
the wail continued, rising into words and a sort of passionate
declamatory recitation as each friend approached, sinking again, as the
pair rocked together, into the tremolo drone. At length the scene was
over; the performers rose; the lepers and the mother were helped in
silence to their places; the whaleboat was urged between the reefs into
a bursting surge, and swung next moment without on the smooth swell.
Almost every countenance about me streamed with tears.

It was odd, but perhaps natural amongst a ceremonious, oratorical race,
that the boat should have waited while a passenger publicly lamented on
the beach. It was more odd still that the mother should have been the
chief, rather the only, actor. She was leaving indeed; she hoped to be
taken as a Kokua, or clean assistant, and thus accompany her daughter to
the settlement; but she was far from sure; and it was highly possible
she might return to Kona in a month. The lepers, on the other hand, took
leave for ever. In so far as regarded their own isle and birthplace, and
for their friends and families, it was their day of death.

The soldier from the war returns,
The sailor from the main:

but not the sick from the gray island. Yet they went unheeded; and the
chief part, and the whole stage and sympathy, was for their travelling
companion.

At the time, I was too deeply moved to criticise; mere sympathy
oppressed my spirit. It had always been a point with me to visit the
station, if I could: on the rocks of Hookena the design was fixed. I had
seen the departure of lepers for the place of exile; I must see their
arrival, and that place itself.[6]

FOOTNOTE:

[6] For an account of the writer's visit to the leper settlement, see
_Letters_, section x.

PART IV

THE GILBERTS

CHAPTER I