The Sandwich Islands—Ein Jahr auf den Sandwich-Inseln (Hawaiische-Inseln)

Abstract

THE chief interest of this volume lies in its pictures of the social and moral condition of a primitive people in close contact with modern civilisation, and the subject for many years of unexampled missionary efforts. The author enters somewhat fully into the character of the climate, the nature of prevalent diseases, the physical and psychical characters of the people, and their probable ethnic affinities. Leprosy is a disease unfortunately very prevalent among the inhabitants, and their Government have hit upon a notable plan for putting the sufferers out of sight, and preventing the spread of the disease by contagion. In the island of Molokai there is a plain near the sea, and walled off from the rest of the island by mountains from two to four thousand feet high, and almost totally inaccessible. To this spot lepers are conveyed by a vessel which periodically leaves Honolulu for that purpose, and for the purpose of carrying food. Every other communication with the sufferers is strictly prohibited. Dr. Bechtinger had a very natural desire to visit this forbidden valley, and ascertain the condition or its inhabitants. Knowing, however, that great opposition would be made to his doing so, he resolved to go thither privately, and attempt to reach the valley over the mountain range at its back. Attended by a photographer, he succeeded in his project, and found the poor wretches (hundreds and hundreds of them) in a most horrible state, utterly neglected and almost entirely without the necessaries of life. It is satisfactory to know that the representations of the Italian doctor in the Honolulu newspaper procured for these outcasts some amelioration of their lot, although it procured for himself abuse and ill-will. As a frontispiece to the volume there is a woodcut, reproduced from a photograph, of the author surrounded by some of the lepers of Molokai. Other woodcuts are likewise given; but they are chiefly, if not solely, remarkable for their very primitive and inartistic character.

The Sandwich Islands.—Ein Jahr auf den Sandwich-Inseln (Hawaiische-Inseln).

Von Dr. J. Bechtinger. (Wien, 1869.)