_9th._--Piru. I am disgusted by the apathy of our exiles. Except one woman, they did not even raise their heads to look on their native land. There was no excitement, no appearance of interest. The Samoan missionary and friends of his, all well-dressed, superior-looking people, came on board. The missionary demanded, in a high and mighty way, that paper, and envelopes, and pen and ink be brought him. Lloyd was working the typewriter to my dictation, which amused them all extremely. Mr. Clark, the missionary from Samoa, has just been here. To our disappointment we have missed him by only twenty-four hours. He has gone, they say, to Apemama, to try and persuade the King to allow them to land a missionary. I think he will not succeed. The King fears the power missionaries get over the people. The traders have also been on board, the braggart Briggs and a Mr. Villiero from the Argentine Republic. Mr. Villiero's father was Italian, his mother Tyrolese. He seems an intelligent, pleasant fellow, and I talked a long time with him. A few years ago, he tells me, a man died on this island who was once secretary to Rajah Brooke. He asked to bring his wife and his adopted daughter, a half-caste Tahitian named Prout, to see me.
I was talking to the two traders to-day when Briggs said that he used to carry the lepers from Honolulu to Molokai. "Did he know Father Damien?" I asked. After much searching in his memory, at last he said he did. "A Catholic priest he was, who seemed to be all right when I knew him, but some pretty ugly stories have come out about him since in Honolulu, I understand." I gave them Louis's pamphlet without a word more.
The tides very low; there is a good deal of copra here, and our black boys worked last night until two in the morning, and to-night they expect to be up still later. One of the black boys is ill with a sore throat, headache, and diarrhoea. We gave him some castor-oil and laudanum, not knowing what else to do. The captain very weak, indeed, with intense headache, sickness, and an intolerable burning in his stomach. There is an odd dryness of his skin, not like fever. He has taken no nourishment but barley-water for days. Louis is better, the hæmorrhage having stopped.