TIIIRTV-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. 175 



exposed my sight to the powerful rays of an Indian sun 

 for some hours, the stomach being empty, one of my eyes 

 became very much inflamed. Not having properly attended 

 to this circumstance, and, as was necessary, immediately 

 applied leeches or bleeding, I found myself on the following 

 morning totally blind ; an Ainauyosis being formed, so that 

 I was unable to seek for any of my medicines. No European 

 physician being at Lahore, I was obliged to have recourse 

 to the native drugs, and consult with native doctors. 

 Leeches, blisters, coliyriums, &c., later employed, seemed of 

 no avail, and for a whole fortnight I was unable to sleep 

 night or day, and was without food of any kind ; for on my 

 attempting to take the slightest nourishment, even pure 

 water, the stomach rejected it again immediately ; and 

 from the circumstance of an acrid fluid sometimes rising to 

 my mouth, and an unnatural feeling of heaviness in the 

 stomach, I was led to conclude that there was an ul- 

 ceration there. Erratic swellings in the joints, accom- 

 panied by dysentery, followed ; and I was so weakened, 

 that on the morning of the day when my brother arrived, 

 I was in a piteous state of blindness and exhaustion. On 

 that day I commenced using that simple remedy which 

 contributed to my restoration from the very dangerous 

 illness at Kheirpore, on the Indus ( as the reader may 

 remember ), viz., masticating some of those large raisins, 

 called there monaka, which I found to act as a balm to the 

 stomach, or rather, perhaps, to the ulceration there. From 

 that moment I grew visibly better, my appetite and strength 

 gradually increased, and I was at length restored to health. 



As regards my brother, it soon became evident, that in 

 the altered state of political affairs in the Punjab, there 

 could be no probability of his obtaining any engagement 

 which would justify him in remaining ; he therefore returned 

 again to Europe, accompanied by Colonel Steinbach. 



As an instance of the fanaticism of the Nahungs ( the 

 robber-pack I have before mentioned ), I may relate an 

 occurrence which took place at Umritsir, in which a German 

 friend of mine, Herr August Schofft, was near losing his 



