*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.
