It was my inclement destiny to become acquainted, not with Damien, but with Dr.Hyde.

When I visited the lazaretto, Damien was already in his resting grave.

But such information as I have, I gathered on the spot in conversation with those who knew him well and long: some indeed who revered his memory; but others who had sparred and wrangled with him, who beheld him with no halo, who perhaps regarded him with small respect, and through whose unprepared and scarcely partial communications the plain, human features of the man shone on me convincingly.

These gave me what knowledge I possess; and I learnt it in that scene where it could be most completely and sensitively understood--Kalawao, which you have never visited, about which you have never so much as endeavoured to inform yourself; for, brief as your letter is, you have found the means to stumble into that confession.

'_Less than one-half_ of the island,' you say, 'is devoted to the lepers.' Molokai--'_Molokai ahina_,' the 'grey,' lofty, and most desolate island--along all its northern side plunges a front of precipice into a sea of unusual profundity.