It was early Sunday morning when the "Busuanga" dropped anchor in the harbor of Culion Island, one of the Calamaines group of the Philippines, and two or three of us were fortunate enough to be invited to land, for an hour or so, to visit the leper colony that 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 immediate impression of a man of quiet force, and the work he is doing in this seldom-visited island is as fine a piece of missionary work, though carried on by the government, as can probably be found anywhere.

Including the dock a few acres of the island are fenced off, and into this enclosure the lepers are forbidden to enter; otherwise they have the run of the island, but are not allowed boats for fear they would be used as a means of escape.

Within the non-leprous enclosure are located the residences for the doctors and other officials; the living quarters, kitchens etc. (all of concrete) for the non-leprous laborers; and various shops and other such buildings.

At the "dead line" fence between this and the leprous part of the island a Chinaman has a small store where the lepers can buy various articles such as may be seen in a small country store. The articles are in plain sight, but the leper is not allowed to touch anything until he has decided to take it; he then drops his money into a sterilizing solution and gets his purchase. A more modern store is being arranged by the government that will soon displace the Chino.

Passing this minute store we entered the gate of the "forbidden city," and, though there is no danger from merely breathing the same air with lepers, it gave us a rather strange sensation to be surrounded by thirty-four hundred poor wretches who in Biblical times would have been compelled to cry "Unclean! unclean!" We, of course, did not touch anything within the colony, though the doctors do not hesitate to touch even the lepers themselves.

The colony proper is located on a small promontory looking eastward to the harbor and the Sulu Sea. At the end of this promontory is an old Spanish fort of stone with its enclosed church. Most of the Christian lepers are Roman Catholics, though there is a small Protestant church in the colony, in charge of a leprous native minister.

The lepers are brought from the various islands of the Philippines to this colony so fast that it is with great difficulty that they can be accommodated; but all are made comfortable, in fact much more comfortable, in most cases, than they would ever have been at home. Except for homesickness, which cannot, of course, be avoided, they are quite happy, or as happy as any hopelessly sick people 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 certain amount of help is given the lepers in building these houses on condition that they first obtain a permit and build in the proper place in relation to the streets that have been laid out.

Besides the dormitories there are several concrete kitchen buildings where the lepers can prepare their food in comfort.

A plentiful supply of pure water is distributed by pipes to various convenient parts of the colony, and several concrete bath and wash houses are conveniently located. A concrete sewage system leads all sewage to the sea.

In this tropical climate it is, of course, unnecessary to provide any means of heating the buildings. At the time of our visit a large amusement pavilion was nearly completed where moving pictures and other forms of entertainment will help pass the time for these poor wretches who have nothing to look forward to but a lingering death from a loathsome disease.

A large number of the patients who are in the incipient stages showed, to the ordinary observer, no effects of the disease. There were others who at first glance seemed perfectly normal, but on closer scrutiny revealed the absence of one or more toes or fingers. Others had horribly swollen ears: some had no nose left and were distressing objects; but it was not until we visited the various wards of the hospital that we saw leprosy in all of its horror. Here were dozens of cases so far advanced that they were no longer able to walk; they were lying on their cots waiting for death to come to their release. Some were so emaciated as to look almost like animated skeletons. Others, except for and sometimes in spite of their bandages, looked like horrid, partially decomposed cadavers. It was a sight to make one shudder and devoutly hope that a cure for this awful disease may soon be discovered. These extreme cases are cared for carefully and their last hours are made as comfortable as possible.

As we came, out three Catholic sisters entered the women's ward to do what they could for the patients there.

Shortly before leaving the colony we were led to a small concrete structure (near the furnace where all combustible waste is burned), and as the door was opened we saw before us on a concrete slab four bodies so wasted and shrivelled that they seemed scarcely human. These were those who had at last been cured in the only way that this dread disease admits of cure. About forty per month are released by death, and those we saw were the last crop of the here merciful not "dread reaper."

At the back of the colony we met four lepers of incipient stages carrying a long box on their shoulders. Just as they came abreast of us they set it down, to rest themselves, and we saw that in the box was another "cured" leper. He was being carried to the cemetery not only "unhonored and unsung" but also "unwept": not a single friend nor relative followed his wasted body to its final resting place. After this pitiful spectacle, added to the horrors of the hospital wards, we were not sorry to turn our steps back toward the boat. As we passed through the fence at the "dead line," going away from the colony, we were compelled to wade through a shallow box of water containing a small percentage of carbolic acid which disinfected the soles of our shoes, the only things about us that had come in actual contact with the leper colony. In this way all visitors when they leave the colony are compelled, not to "shake its dust from their feet" but to wash its germs from their soles.

As an antidote for dissatisfaction with one's lot in life, or as an object lesson for the pessimists who claim there is no unselfishness in the world, or as an illustration of the value of the medical missionary, this little island, lying "somewhere east of Suez" between the Sulu and the China Seas, is not easily surpassed.