At our departure from Honolulu, we were quite covered with leis by the kind friends who gathered at the dock to see us off. Our boat plunged almost immediately into the high seas of the channel between Oahu and Molokai. As we passed the latter island, we had a distant view of the leper colony, on a triangle of level land, at the foot of a precipice three thousand feet high that effectually guards the patients from the landward side. At first the lepers resisted the attempt to banish them to the colony, and their relatives, who seemed to have no fear of the disease, concealed those who were afflicted, but this opposition decreased as the natives learned that the lepers were to be supported in comfort by the Government. They have a school, a library, newspapers, musical instruments, a theater, even moving-picture shows now, I am told--in short, everything is done to make their lives as pleasant and comfortable as possible. Mark Twain writes of a beautiful custom in the colony. "Would you expect," he says, "to find in that awful leper settlement a custom worthy of transplanting to your own country? When death sets open the prison door of life there the band salutes the very soul with a burst of golden music." On this island where the natives have retained their primitive habits and beliefs more than on the others of the group, the Poison God was saved at the time the idols were destroyed, a hundred years ago. It was kept here in charge of kahunas until near the end of the last century, and it is not definitely known whether it may not even now be in existence. This hideous image seems to have had the power to kill those who handled it. It has been suggested that it was made of some poisonous wood, and only the priests knew how to hold it without harm. The boat reeled on through another rough passage to the double island of Maui, consisting of two great mountain peaks joined by a low isthmus of lava, which by degrees filled up the channel between the two original islands. We made endless stops, and by means of small boats took on and off freight, cattle, and passengers--native, Chinese and Japanese. Our first landing was at Lahaina, once the capital of the group and the rendezvous for all the whaling ships in the Pacific. Now it is a dilapidated village, attractive only for its beautiful situation. At Wailuku, at the northern end of the isthmus, was the home of "Father Alexander," well known as one of the early missionaries. The name Wailuku means "Water of Destruction." A great battle was fought near here by Kamehameha the Great.