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It seemed they knew nothing of sight.
Well, all in good time he would teach them.
He heard people shouting, and saw a number of figures
gathering together in the middle roadway of the village.
He found it tax his nerve and patience more than he had
anticipated, that first encounter with the population of the
Country of the Blind. The place seemed larger as he drew near to
it, and the smeared plasterings queerer, and a crowd of children
and men and women (the women and girls he was pleased to note had,
some of them, quite sweet faces, for all that their eyes were shut
and sunken) came about him, holding on to him, touching him with
soft, sensitive hands, smelling at him, and listening at every
word he spoke. Some of the maidens and children, however, kept
aloof as if afraid, and indeed his voice seemed coarse and rude
beside their softer notes. They mobbed him. His three guides kept
close to him with an effect of proprietorship, and said again and
again, "A wild man out of the rocks."
"
Bogota," he said. "Bogota. Over the mountain crests."
A wild man--using wild words," said Pedro. "Did you hear
"
that--
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