Leprosy is the most fearful disease that was ever visited upon the human family. Never yet has a case of it been cured without the direct intervention of God. Man’s skill is powerless to stay its ravages on the human frame and system. If there were no leprosy on earth to-day, probably there never would be any. It is not now, so far as can be ascertained, generated anew and afresh. It is inherited from one’s parents, and in this way it is handed down from generation to generation. It is absolutely impossible for leprous parents to give birth to a child who will not die of leprosy, unless, perchance, the babe die before the disease breaks out. The child may possibly remain sound and healthy until he is six or even sixteen years old; but the fearful disease is in his bones and blood and system, and it is coming to the surface—it is coming to stay, to eat up the body and “steal away the life o’ the building.” Leprosy warns its victim of its approach by a cold and chilly sensation, which alternates with fever. Then a purple fleck or blotch, with a hard lump under it, comes on the face. The blotches now come thick and fast. Blotch meets blotch, until the bloated face is covered, and the cheeks look like purple clusters of grapes. The blotches finally swell, itch, fester, burst and pour forth an immense amount of pus and corruption. Then they heal up for a while, only, however, to itch, swell and burst again. About a mile and a half from the centre of the city, we see a great rock wall, enclosing twenty or more acres of land, rising up like the walls of a penitentiary, twenty-five or thirty feet high. Pointing to this wall, Abraham says: “There is the hospital.” I respond, “Yes, there it is, but I want to go in it.” “Want to go in it?” said he. “Yes, Abraham, and I want you to go with me.” With a strange look in his face, and a tremor in his voice, he answers, “You don’t mean that, do you?” “Most emphatically, I do. I want you to go in with me.” “Well, sir,” he continues, “I can’t do it.” “But,” said I, “look here, Abraham, I have paid you my money. You are my guide. You have promised to show me through the city.” “Yes, sir, but I didn’t promise to go into the tomb with you,” was his response. Turning to Johnson, I request him to accompany me. I show him a book which says that it is questionable whether leprosy is at all contagious; that it is possible for one to shake hands with a leper without any ill effects. Besides, I tell him that we will arm ourselves so as to keep them away from us—that we will fill our pockets with coins, and, if the lepers come close to us, will strew them like seed corn on the ground, and while they stop to gather them up, we will get a good look at them. I explain further to my companion that even if the lepers were disposed to come up to us, we could fight them off with our heavy canes.