p. 635 | LEPERS AT RAMLEH

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 13, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 40.

LEPERS AT RAMLEH.

A LADY writes from Jaffa as follows:—

“When we reached Ramleh, Abou Ibrahim went to look for the lepers in their different haunts, and collected them together under some trees outside the town. A stone in the center of the circle was spread with a red pocket handkerchief for me to sit upon. I had been told there were ten of them, but I only counted nine. ‘Who is missing?’ I asked. ‘Only poor Fatmeh,’ they replied; ‘her place of begging is rather far away, and she cannot walk much, for she has hurt her leg.’ ‘Cannot someone help her?’ I said; ‘I want you all together.’

“There was a little hesitation. At last a man got up. ‘It is rather difficult, lady,’ he said, ‘and the day is hot, but for your sake I will try.’ Off he went, and after some time returned, heated, panting, breathless, carrying the old woman on his back, she looking as overcome as himself with the exertion of holding on. If I had known how difficult it was going to be for both, I fear I should not have insisted on Fatmeh’s presence. However, she had come, and the circle was complete. There were ten of them, ‘and they were lepers.’

“All forms of the disease were exhibited among them. The blurred features, the mutilated hands and feet, the hoarse, rasping voice, the hidden wounds. Some, like Hussain, who carried Fatmeh, bore no outward tokens; others were painfully disfigured. One poor woman laughed mournfully as she told me her name, ‘Shellibiah—beautiful.’ Her face was attacked by the disease, and, if she had ever merited her name, all traces of comeliness had long ago disappeared. One of the number was a little boy, apparently about fourteen. Fatmeh was a middle-aged woman, who had been there thirty years, fifteen with her husband, and fifteen after his death.

“One of the men had lately come, and one, Salah, had just left them for the leper hospital in Jerusalem. He had become quite blind and very helpless, so at last he consented to give up his free, open-air life. He was a Protestant, and could read; the others were all Moslems.”—Selected.