Cheyenne Transporter

"UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!"
The Voluntary Exile of a Leper in California.

Twice in the history of California leper colonies have existed here, and have been destroyed by immediate action of the authorities, the Chinese and Hawaiians composing them being returned to their own countries. At the present time, however, the Pacific coast is alarmed over the existence of a number of incurable lepers, some of them whites, and a leper hospital with about thirty patients has been established. Prompt action in shipping these lepers is demanded by most of the San Francisco papers, as there is danger that in time the disease may become thoroughly established in California, and thus a leper quarter at last become as much a San Francisco sight as the Chinese quarter now is.

It is easy to discover the sources of leprous infection which most threaten California. One is Chinese, from the lowlands of the great rivers, and from the Malay peninsula and the Philippines, in both of which places leprosy is more common than in China, and from both of which points Chinese have removed to San Francisco. But the most dangerous source is undoubtedly Hawaiian, for in that group of islands the best medical authorities declare that 2 per cent of the natives are infected. There lies the awful leprosy isle of Molokai, the most horribly fascinating and Dantesque sight to be witnessed in the world. The true story of the Hawaiian savage life that developed leprosy on these islands can never be told to civilized ears. It is enough to say that centuries of debauchery corrupted the blood of the race, and its paradise is the sting of the serpent leprosy. It is no light matter for California that commercial and social relations with the Hawaiian islands are increasing every year, that young Californians find employment on the sugar plantations for a few years and return, and that the advantages of Honolulu as a winter resort attract many thither. The upper classes of the natives are intelligent and cultivated, but from the lower classes infection may be and has been spread to Americans.

The saddest case of leprosy on the Pacific coast that ever came under my observation was about ten years ago. Leaving a log cabin school-house in San Luis Obispo county, where I had taught barefooted mountain girls and sturdy young vaqueros through the summer months, I saddled up my wild brown broncho for a ride northward through the passes of the hills to the old stage road. I was careless and absolutely guileless of woodcraft, so it is little wonder that I lost my way before nightfall, wandered in a northeasterly direction, and involved myself for some time, almost inextricably, in the wildest portion of the headwaters of the Nacimiento river, the boundary line between Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties. There is no more picturesque or interesting region in the entire California coast range than the spot to which I penetrated before nightfall. Nominally it was a cattle range, but practically at that time, one might spend a week there without meeting anything except birds, squirrels, and lynxes. Now it is no joke to be lost, even if it is in the mild climate of California, for certain hereditary food instincts of the normal man crave satisfaction at not too remote intervals, and Nebuchadnezzar's diet has never won human approval. So when, late in the afternoon, I rode into a narrow ravine and found signs of occupancy, great was my rejoicing. There seemed to be a narrow path trodden in the tall dry wild oats, leading to a spring set low in the bank, and a little further, in an open space, at the head of the gulch, with cliffs behind it, was a rude cabin. Something about it thrilled me with a strange feeling of dread. There was a curious sickening odor that came from it on the breeze, and started me into wondering whether any one lay there dying of fever or disease. I know now what that odor was, but I did not know then. A great live oak tree stood by the path, near the spring, and as I rode past it I saw a board nailed to it, and on that board rudely painted in weak and wavering letters was the sentence: "For God's sake, come no nearer." I did not understand it. I do now.

I thought a moment, slowly; I was young and foolish; I rode on, past the sentence, ready to turn and gallop off at any sign of danger. On the slope of the canyon a rod of garden lay, bush-fenced and watered; quail-traps were piled by the door: this hermit had food in abundance. A harsh, crackled voice called out to me from the cabin door: a hand projecting closed it, and then, speaking through the crevice, I heard in good English words like these: "You must go away; it is death to stay here. I am accursed. The air is poison." I asked the way. "Climb that mountain," he cried; "go, go at once." The words were spoken with intense earnestness, and with an indescribable quality of superhuman agony, if the phrase may be pardoned. For hours after I had left the place I kept finding new meanings in that harsh, painful cry.

A mile from the cabin a bit of white fluttered in the grass. I dismounted and examined it. A fragment of a letter it was; most of the words illegible, the handwriting delicate and feminine, the paper of the costliest. Had it belonged to that poor leper, crouching in his loathsome cabin, crying "unclean?" That is one of the secrets for the hereafter to reveal. Before dark I was on the hilltop, and saw the shining course of the river, the great peaks, height beyond height in vast ridges of pine and spruce, the Pacific lying low along the western horizon. I found a cattle trail and followed it to a pioneer's cabin, sometime about midnight, finding food, and a blanket on the haystack for the rest of the night, but of the hermit in the mountains I said not a word.

Five years later a local journal mentioned the fact that a cabin had been found in the mountains, at the headwaters of the Nacimiento, and in it a man's skeleton lay. Some refugee from justice, it was thought, had perished at his own hands there, or died of disease. I met one of the cattle-owners of that region and questioned him concerning it. Yes, they had seen a board by the spring, but the writing was faded. No books, papers, or clothing: all had been burned in the fireplace. They raked the ashes over, and could tell there had been a bible, a photograph album, and packages of letters; but really it was no consequence, they said. He was a sheep-herder, or a lunatic, or a stage-robber, they believed. But I knew that I had seen and spoken with a self-exiled leper, and that his torture had come to an end, because flesh and blood could bear no more.--Cor. New York Tribune.