Reese, A. M.

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672 THE OPEN COURT.exists that if the ItaHan government makes an attack on Austriathe CathoHcs at the command of the Pope himself must cooperateagainst the interest of the church, and even go to the war willinglysince every popular league is torn asunder by national passionswhen once these have been inflamed. But for this there is noremedy, and therefore the more ardent is the wish of the Vaticanthat Italy may settle its differences with Austria.This whole course of events shows how the interests of bothCuria and kingdom have approached each other and to some extentbecome fused. Nevertheless the main question of the constitutionalrelation between the two still remains in dispute. If the papacysees its hope for regaining its secular power dispelled, or at leastindefinitely postponed, it can by no means be reconciled to the pres-ent state of things.Italy is now avoiding the delicate point. Meanwhile betweenher interests and those of the Vatican a community of interest onanother side comes to the fore. It would be bad for both if Russiashould break through to the Adriatic with its Serbian vanguard.Blind supporters of the old Triple Alliance prefer to deny anydanger from Russia, but careful Italians remember a familiar maximcoined for just such an occasion at the present: that if Austria didnot exist it would have to be invented, because it is necessary forthe European balance of power, and its disappearance would be agreat disaster to Italy. It would at the same time be a disaster forthe Catholic church as well—even much greater for her.TAYTAY AND THE LEPER COLONY OF CULION.BY A. M. REESE.THE cutter Busuanga of the Philippine Bureau of Navigationhad been chartered to go to Tay Tay on the Island of Palawan,to bring back to Manila the party of naturalists of the Bureau ofScience who had been studying the little-known fauna and flora ofthat far-away island, the most westerly of the Philippine group.After leaving the dock at Manila at sundown we steamed outof the bay, past the searchlights of Corregidor and the other fortswhich were sweeping entirely across the entrance to the bay in away that would immediately expose any enemy that might attemptto slip by in the dark, and by nine o'clock we were headed in a south-westerly direction across the China Sea.TAY TAY AND THE LEPER COLONY OF CULION. 673The next day we passed through winding passages along theCalamaines group where every hour brought to view new islandsof the greatest beauty and of every size and shape. Upon one ofthese islands is a leper colony which we visited and found mostinteresting.Early on the second morning we entered the harbor of the smallbut ancient village of Tay Tay (pronounced "tie tie" and spelledin various ways) on the eastern shore of Palawan. Not a whiteman lives in this inaccessible hamlet and it is seldom that one visitsVILLAGE OF TAY TAY FROM THE HARBOR.it, as there is no regular communication of any sort with the out-side world.The village consists of a dozen or two native huts along thebeach in a very pretty grove of coconut trees. Back of the villageis a range of low mountains covered with tropical jungle. Themain point of interest is a well constructed fort of stone, builton a small promontory that projects out into the bay. The wallsof the fort are very massive and are surmounted at each of thefour corners by a round watch tower. On its land side the fortis entered through a narrow gate that leads by a stone stairway to674 THE OPEN COURT.the top of the promontory. On various parts of the walls arecarvings and inscriptions showing that the different bastions werebuilt at different times.Within the fort and overlooking the walls is an old stonechurch whose roof has long since fallen in. Within the fort is alsoa large cement-lined, stone cistern to hold water in case of siege.The Spanish inscriptions on the walls show that the fort was begunabout 1720, though the mission there was established about 1620.Lying about within the fort are a few large iron cannon that weredoubtless used by the Spaniards in repulsing the attacks of theTWO PROMINENT HOUSES IN TAY TAY.Moro pirates. It was for a refuge from these pirates that thisold fort was built nearly two hundred years ago in this tiny, reef-protected harbor, on an island that even now is unknown to a largemajority of American people although it is a part of our territory.On the shore, just back of the fort, is another stone churchwhose roof has also fallen in ; and back of this church is a smallthatched bell tower with two very good bells of harmonious toneshanging in it. How long these bells have been silent it is difficultto say, but no priest now remains to carry on the work begun nearlythree hundred years ago by the brave padres from Spain, and notTAY TAY AND THE LEPER COLONY OF CULION. 675a Spaniard now lives in that almost forgotten village. But for themoss-covered and still massive gray walls of the fort and thecrumbling ruins of the two churches one would never imagine thatthis tiny village of brown men had ever been inhabited by subjectsof the kingdom of Spain.In passing out of the harbor of Tay Tay we visited a smallvolcanic island of curiously weathered and water-worn limestone.Except for a narrow beach the sides of this island are almost per-pendicular, and the cliffs are honeycombed with dozens of water-THE SPANISH FORT AT TAY TAY.worn caves. Many of these caves are of great beauty, resemblingthe interiors of stone churches ; some extend far back into the darkinterior of the island, others are lighted by openings at the top.Many of them are beautifully colored, and in an accessible regionwould doubtless be frequently visited by tourists, while in their iso-lated location it is possible that they had never before been visitedby white men, unless in the old Spanish days. It is in these and insimilar caves of this region that the natives obtain the edible birds'nests so highly prized by some, especially the Chinese. The nativesare said to have claims on certain caves, and any one found stealingnests from another man's cave is supposedly dealt with as a thief.676 THE OPEN COURT.These curious nests are built by swifts (swallows) against thewalls of the dark caves much in the some way as is done by ourcommon chimney swifts, except that instead of cementing a numberof small twigs together by a kind of sticky secretion or saliva, theentire nest is made of the sticky substance which dries into a sortof gummy mass. This substance has but little taste, and why thewealthy Chinese should be willing to pay such enormous prices ($12to $15 per pound) for it is hard to understand.CHURCH WITHIN THE FORTIt is said that the first nest the bird makes in the season bringsthe highest price because it is of pure material ; this nest havingbeen taken the bird builds another, but, having a diminished supplyof the secretion, it introduces some foreign matter to help out, andthis foreign matter, of course, makes the nest less valuable as food.A third nest may succeed the second, but it has still more foreignmatter to still further diminish its value. That the collection of theTAY TAY AND THE LEPER COLONY OF CULION. 677nests is attended with considerable danger is evident from the vert-ical, jagged walls of rock that must be scaled, either from belowor above, to obtain them.To those of us who lead busy lives in the centers of what wecall twentieth-century civilization, life in a place so isolated fromthe rest of the world as Tay Tay seems impossible. Yet the in-habitants of this barrio are quite contented and fairly comfortable.They live "the simple life" indeed. While their resources areBELL-TOWER OF THE CHURCH OUTSIDE OF THE FORT.exceedingly limited their needs and desires are correspondingly few.They never suffer from cold and probably not often from heat orhunger ; and they are not cursed with the ambitions that make somany of us dissatisfied with our lives.It was early Sunday morning when the Busuanga droppedanchor in the harbor of Culion Island, one of the Calamaines groupof the Philippines, and two or three of us were fortunate enough678 THE OPEN COURT.to be invited to land, for an hour or so, to visit the leper colonythat is said to be the largest in the world.We were met at the tiny dock by the physician-in-charge. Dr.Clements, and by him escorted about the colony. This physician,who has spent long years in these eastern lands, gives the immediateimpression of a man of quiet force, and the work he is doing in thisseldom-visited island is as fine a piece of missionary work, thoughcarried on by the government, as can probably be found anywhere.Including the dock a few acres of the island are fenced off, andinto this enclosure the lepers are forbidden to enter ; otherwise theyISLAND NEAR TAY TAY WHERE EDIBLE BIRDS' NESTS AREFOUND.have the run of the island, but are not allowed boats for fear theywould be used as a means of escape.Within the non-leprous enclosure are located the residences forthe doctors and other officials; the living quarters, kitchens etc. (allof concrete) for the non-leprous laborers ; and various shops andother such buildings.At the "dead line" fence between this and the leprous part ofthe island a Chinaman has a small store where the lepers can buyvarious articles such as may be seen in a small country story. TheTAY TAY AND THE LEPER COLONY OF CULION. 679articles are in plain sight, but the leper is not allowed to touchanything until he has decided to take it ; he then drops his moneyinto a sterilizing solution and gets his purchase. A more modemstore is being arranged by the government that will soon displacethe China.Passing this minute store we entered the gate of the "for-bidden city," and, though there is no danger from merely breathingthe same air with lepers, it gave us a rather strange sensation to besurrounded by thirty-four hundred poor wretches who in Biblicaltimes would have been compelled to cry "Unclean ! unclean !" We,DOCTORS' RESIDENCES AND OTHER BUILDINGS OUTSIDE OFTHE BALCONY FENCE.of course, did not touch anything within the colony, though thedoctors do not hesitate to touch even the lepers themselves.The colony proper is located on a small promontory lookingeastward to the harbor and the Sulu Sea. At the end of this pro-montory is an old Spanish fort of stone with its enclosed church.Most of the Christian lepers are Roman Catholics, though thereis a small Protestant church in the colony, in charge of a leprousnative minister.The lepers are brought from the various islands of the Philip-680 THE OPEN COURT.pines to this colony so fast that it is with great difficulty that theycarl be accommodated; but all are made comfortable, in fact muchmore comfortable, in most cases, than they would ever have beenat home. Except for homesickness, which cannot, of course, beavoided, they are quite happy, or as happy as any hopelessly sickpeople can be away from home and friends.Fine concrete dormitories are supplied, but many prefer to.build their own native houses of nipa palm and bamboo. A certainamount of help is given the lepers in building these houses on con-CONCRETE DORMITORY AND NATIVE SHACKS.dition that they first obtain a permit and build in the proper placein relation to the streets that have been laid out.Besides the dormitories there are several concrete kitchenbuildings where the lepers can prepare their food in comfort.A plentiful supply of pure water is distributed by pipes tovarious convenient parts of the colony, and several concrete bathand wash houses are conveniently located. A concrete sewage sys-tem leads all sewage to the sea.In this tropical climate it is, of course, unnecessary to provideany means of heating the buildings. At the time of our visit alarge amusement pavilion was nearly completed where moving pic-TAY TAY AND THE LEPER COLONY OF CULION. 681tures and other forms of entertainment will help pass the time forthese poor wretches who have nothing to look forward to but alingering death from a loathsome disease.A large number of the patients who are in the incipient stagesshowed, to the ordinary observer, no effects of the disease. Therewere others who at first glance seemed perfectly normal, but oncloser scrutiny revealed the absence of one or more toes or fingers.Others had horribly swollen ears ; some had no nose left and weredistressing objects ; but it was not until we visited the various wardsof the hospital that we saw leprosy in all of its horror. Here wereCONCRETE KITCHEN AND LAVATORY BUILDINGS AND NATIVERESIDENCES.dozens of cases so far advanced that they were no longer ableto walk ; they were lying on their cots waiting for death to cometo their release. Some were so emaciated as to look almost likeanimated skeletons. Others, except for and sometimes in spite oftheir bandages, looked like horrid, partially decomposed cadavers.It was a sight to make one shudder and devoutly hope that a curefor this awful disease may soon be discovered. These extremecases are cared for carefully and their last hours are made as com-fortable as possible.682 THE OPEN COURT.As we came out three Catholic sisters entered the women'sward to do what they could for the patients there.Shortly before leaving the colony we were led to a small con-crete structure (near the furnace where all combustible waste isburned), and as the door was opened we saw before us on a con-crete slab four bodies so wasted and shrivelled that they seemedscarcely human. These were those who had at last been cured inthe only way that this dread disease admits of cure. About fortyper month are released by death, and those we saw were the lastcrop of the here merciful not "dread reaper."At the back of the colony we met four lepers of incipient stagescarrying a long box on their shoulders. Just as they came abreastof us they set it down, to rest themselves, and we saw that in thebox was another "cured" leper. He was being carried to the ceme-tery not only "unhonored and unsung" but also "unwept" : not asingle friend nor relative followed his wasted body to its finalresting place. After this pitiful spectacle, added to the horrors ofthe hospital wards, we were not sorry to turn our steps back towardthe boat. As we passed through the fence at the "dead line," goingaxvay from the colony, we were compelled to wade through a shallowbox of water containing a small percentage of carbolic acid whichdisinfected the soles of our shoes, the only things about us thathad come in actual contact with the leper colony. In this way allvisitors when they leave the colony are compelled, not to "shake itsdust from their feet" but to wash its germs from their soles.As an antidote for dissatisfaction with one's lot in life, or asan object lesson for the pessimists who claim there is no unselfish-ness in the world, or as an illustration of the value of the medicalmissionary, this little island, lying "somewhere east of Suez" be-tween the Sulu and the China Seas, is not easily surpassed.THE MISSING LOG-BOOK OF ST. PETER'S MIS-SIONARY JOURNEYS.BY F. W. ORDE WARD.LONG ago it was finely and indeed plausibly suggested that theJ Odyssey represented the log-book of some ancient Greek mer-chant captain. And it is by no means improbable that Homer, withhis knowledge of the sea and his passion for it, was a sailor himselfor a seafaring traveler and explorer, who wove into his wonderfulepic the adventures of his hero at a time when legend and history

Tay Tay and the Leper Colony of Culion.

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Tay Tay and the Leper Colony of Culion.

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