The country of the blind – I

*Adapted from the story by H.G. Wells.

I

Three hundred miles and more from Chimborazo, in the wildest wastes of

the Andes in Equador, there lies that mysterious mountain valley cut off from the

world of men, called the Country of the Blind.

Long ago the valley was connected to the outside world by a difficult moun-

tain pass, and some people from Peru settled down in the valley. It had all that

the heart of man could desire: sweet water, rich green pasture, plentiful trees

and a fine climate. The settlers did very well indeed up there and their cattle and

sheep did well and multiplied. But one thing their happiness, and spoiled it

greatly. A strange disease came upon them-they all began to lose their sight

gradually. The children born to them were born blind.

While this was happening, there came a terrible earth-quake and landslide.

One whole side of the mountain slipped and came down with a tremendous

noise and filled up the mountain pass, cutting off the little green valley forever

from the exploring feet of men.

II

The strange disease ran its course among the little population of the iso-

lated valley. But life was very easy in that valley, there beings no thorns, snakes,

or wild animals to harm them; and the seeing had become blind so gradually that

they scarcely noticed their loss and easily got accustomed to the new life. They

guided the sightless youngsters here and there until knew the whole valley

marvelously, and when at last sight died out aming them, the race lived on.

Generation followed generation. Their tradition of the greater world they

had come from gradually and became a mere children’s tale. The little commu-

nity grew and developed its own way of life. There came a time when child was

born who was fifteen generations from the time of the earthquake and landslide.

At about this time it chanced that a man came into this community from the

world. This is the story of that man; his name was Nunez.

Nunez was a mountaineer, an intelligent and adventurous sort of man; he

was from Bogota near Quito. He was acting as guide to a party of Englishmen

who had out to Equador to climb the mountains .One night he was found missing

from the camp. In the morning the party saw the traces of his fall. His track went

straight to the edge of a frightful precipice, and beyond it every thing was hid-

den. Shaken by the disaster, the party gave up the trip and returned to Quito.

But the man who had fallen lived.

He fell the precipice into a mass of soft snow, lid down a steep slope

unconscious, but without a bone broken in his body. Then he rolled down gentler

slopes, and at last still, half buried in the masses of soft snow that had saved

him.

III

In the morning he heard the singing of the birds in the trees far below. He

was in a pass between the mountains; and far below he saw green meadows and

in their midst a village, a group of stone huts built in an unfamiliar fashion. He

slowly climbed down precipices and walked down slopes, and at about midday

came to the plain, stiff and tired out. He sat down rested in the shadow of a rock.

As he looked at the village, there seem to be something extraordinary and

unfamiliar about it. Things looked surprisingly neat and orderly in the valley; the

house in the village stood in a regular line on either side of a street of extraordi-

nary neatness. But not a single house had a window, and the walls of the houses

were painted in different colours with extreme irregularity. They were grey in

some places, brown or black in others.

“The good man who painted these walls,” said Nunez to himself, “must

have been absolutely blind!” As he went towards the village, he could see at a

distance a number of men and women resting on piled hips of grass, and nearer

the village, a number of sleeping children. Three men walking one behind and

other were carrying buckets of water. Nunez shouted to them. They stopped and

turned their heads this way and that, as if they were looking about them. Nunez

waved his arms at them, but this scarcely seemed to have any effect on them

“The fools must be blind,” said Nunez to himself. Nunez went nearer, and now

he could plainly see that the men were blind .He was sure that this was the

country of blind .All the old legends of the lost valley came back to his mind,

and through his thoughts ran the old proverb: In the Country of the Blind the one

eyed man is King.

IV

Nunez advanced with confidence and greeted them politely. He explained

that he came from the country beyond the mountains where men could see.

“Let us lead him to the elders,”said one of men, and took Nunez by hand to

lead him along. Nunez drew his hands away.

“I can see,” he said.

“See!” said one of then men.

“Yes, see,” said Nunez, turning towards him, and stumbled against one of

the buckets.

“His senses are still imperfect,” said the second blind man. “He stumbles

and talks meaningless words. Lead him by the hand.”

“ As you please,” said Nunez, and was led along laughing.

It seemed they nothing of sight. Well, in course of time he would teach them.

Soon a crowd of men, women and children all with their eyes shut and

sunken, crowded round him folding him and touching him, smelling at him and

listening to his words.

“A wild man out of the rocks,” said his guides to the crowd.

“Bogota,” Nunez explained. “From Bogota, beyond the mountains.”

“A wild man speaking wild words,” said one of his guides. “Did you hear

that –Bogota?”

“Bogota,” repeated the boys in the crowd. That became Nunez’s name in

the Country of Blind.

“Take him to the elders,” said some one in the crowd. They pushed him

suddenly through a doorway in to a rook black as night. Before he could stop

himself he stumbled over the feet of a seated man and fell. He threw out his arm

as he fell, and it struck someone’s face. He heard a cry of anger and a number of

hands seized him. First he struggled, and then finding it useless, he lay quite.

“ I fell down,” he said. “I could not see in this black darkness.”

“He stumbles and talk meaningless.” One of his guides explained.

V

Nunez heard the voice of an older man question him. He found himself

trying to explain the great world out of which he had fallen, ant the sky; and the

mountains and sight, and such other marvels to these elders who sat in the dark-

ness in the Country of the Blind. But they would believe or understand nothing of

what he told them. During the long years of isolation the names for the thing s of

sight had faded and changed in their language, and they had ceased to interest

themselves in anything beyond the rocky slopes above their village .As for Nunez,

they dismissed his words as the confused speech of a being with imperfect senses.

But they were very sympathetic about his difficulties, and asked him to have

courage and try to learn.

The eldest of the blind men explained to him life and science and religion

.He told him that time was divided into ‘the warm’ and ‘the cold’ (that is how

they distinguished between day and night); it was goods to sleep in ‘the warm’

and work in ‘the cold’. Nunez remembered how, although he had arrived at

midday, he had found the whole village asleep. Then the old man said that it was

late and that they must all retire to bed .He asked Nunez if he knew how to sleep.

Nunez said he did, but before sleep he wanted food.

They brought him llama’s milk in a bowl, and rough, salted bread, and led

him into a lonely place to eat. Afterwards they all retired to bed till the cold

mountain evening woke them to begin their ‘day’ again.