Note 144 — Chapter VI · Magic Rites as affecting the Life of Man (continued 2)

“It was soon after his marriage that his trouble fell upon Umat, and swept much of the sunshine from his life. He contracted a form of ophthalmia, and for a time was blind. Native Medicine Men doctored him, and drew sheaves of needles and bunches of thorns from his eyes, which they declared were the cause of his affliction. These miscellaneous odds and ends used to be brought to me at breakfast-time, floating, most unappetisingly, in a shallow cup half-full of water; and Umat went abroad with eye-sockets stained crimson, or black, according to the fancy of the native physician. The aid of an English doctor was called in, but Umat was too thoroughly a Malay to trust the more simple remedies prescribed to him, and though his blindness was relieved, and he became able to walk without the aid of a staff, his eyesight could never really be given back to him.”144