re flickering upon the floor; the fumes of burning punk freighted
the air and clouded the vision; the place was clean enough, for it was
perfectly bare, but it was eminently uninteresting. Close at hand stood
a second burial-case, an empty one, with the cover standing against the
wall; a few hours more and it would find a tenant--he who was dying in
rags and filth in the room adjoining. This was the native hospital
of the quarter, and the mother of the child was the matron of the
establishment.

I will cast but one more shadow on the coolie quarter, and then we will
search for sunshine. It is folly to attempt to ignore the fact that the
seeds of leprosy are sown among the Chinese. If you would have Proof,
follow me. It is a dreary drive over the hills to the pest-house.
Imagine that we have dropped in upon the health officer at his city
office. Our proposed visitation has been telephoned to the resident
physician, who is a kind of prisoner with his leprous patients on the
lonesome slope of a suburban hill. As we get into the rugged edge of the
city, among half-graded streets, strips of marshland, and a semi-rustic
population, we ask our way to the pest-house. Yonder it lies, surrounded
by that high white fence on the hill-top, above a marsh once clouded
with clamorous water-fowl, but now all, all under the spell of the
quarantine, and desolate beyond description. Our road winds up the
hill-slope, sown thick with stones, and stops short at the great solid
gate in the high rabbit fence that walls in the devil's acre, if I may
so call it. We ring the dreadful bell--the passing-bell, that is seldom
rung save to announce the arrival of another fateful body clothed in
living death.

The doctor welcomes us to an enclosure that is utterly whitewashed; the
detached houses within it are kept sweet and clean. Everything connected
with the lazaret is of the cheapest description; there is a primitive
simplicity, a modest nakedness, an insulated air about the place that
reminds one of a chill December in a desert island. Cheap as it is and
unhandsome, the hospital is sufficient to meet all the requirements of
the plague in its present stage of development. The doctor has weeded
out the enclosure, planted it, hedged it about with the fever-dispelling
eucalyptus, and has already a little plot of flowers by the office
window,--but this is not what we have come to see. One ward in the
pest-house is set apart for the exclusive use of the