This disease made terrible ravages, and the Government at once ordered the people to be vaccinated.

There seems to be no doubt that the vaccine matter used was often taken from persons not previously in sound health; this was perhaps unavoidable; but intelligent men, long resident in the Islands, believe that vaccination thus performed with impure matter had a bad effect upon the people, leaving traces of a resulting corruption of their blood.
The choice of the plain of Kalawao as the spot on which to seclude the lepers from all the Islands was very happy.

It can not be said that to an agile native the place is inaccessible, for there are, no doubt, several points in the great precipice where men and women could make their way down or up; and there are instances of women swimming around the precipitous and surf-beaten shore, seven or eight miles, to reach husbands or friends in the settlement to whom they were devotedly attached.

But it is easily guarded, and, for all practical purposes, the seclusion is perfect.
A singular tradition, related to me on the island, points to its use for such a purpose and gives a sad significance to the leper settlement.

It is said that in the time of the first Kamehameha, the conqueror and hero of his race, upon an occasion when he visited Molokai, an old sorceress or priestess sent him word that she had made a garment for him--a robe of honor--which she desired him to come and get.