cheerfully; but it was all terribly sad. Brother John could hardly trust himself to speak to poor Bella, while she herself seemed ready to cry. I looked at the miserable bareness of the place, and at the native women squatting about on the floor, and inquired if they had no chairs or washstands, or any more furniture than what I saw. They shook their heads. The Jewess pointed to a little oil-stove that was worn out and full of holes, and asked me if I would try to get her a new one, as she had no stove to boil water for her tea. I found that they washed themselves at a tap in the enclosure, but had neither bath-tubs or washstands. The sheets on their beds were supposed to be changed once a week: it was evident from their colour that they could not have been washed oftener. I wish to lay particular stress on the need there was of clean bed-linen and underclothing, both from the offensive nature of the disease and from the tropical heat of the climate. In the alcove attached to this ward we found another girl, called Daisy, whom the superintendent informed me was of Scotch parentage, but who had been suckled as an infant by a Madrassi nurse, who had afterwards turned out to be a leper. Her features were terribly distorted by the disease. Her fingers and toes were in much the same state as those of poor Bella, and she wore a green shade over her eyes. There were a couple of wicker chairs in her little room, also an accordion, with which the superintendent told me she used to accompany herself to songs; that she had a sweet voice, and often sang to the other lepers. “To whom do these women apply for their wants?” I asked. “To me,” said Mr. McGuire. “I come here once a week.” “But is there no woman to look after such things?” “No,” he said; “women don’t care to come to such places as these.” I passed sorrowfully out, telling Daisy and the others that I would soon return with fruit, flowers, etc., which they said they would like. They smiled sadly, as though doubting my word, having had, as I afterwards discovered, many other promises of the kind which had not been kept. Poor Bella was tortured by flies, which surrounded her open sores in swarms. The smell, too, of the disease was so great that I was perforce obliged to walk with my handkerchief to my face the whole time. It was a very hot day, and I felt bitterly sorry for these poor sufferers, without fans, lavender water, or any little comforts whatever. I would fain have fled from this pestilent abode, and yet I lingered, wishing in my helplessness that I had the power of God behind me to enable me to say to these poor women, “I will, be thou clean.” As it was, I could only stand gazing sadly on them, wondering why God had so afflicted His creatures. I walked as one bewildered through another ward, wherein were nine miserable native women, all more or less terrible to behold. “Is there no English doctor to attend to the European women here?” I asked. “No,” replied the superintendent.