But the sudden change from dry Scinde to the damp cold mountains induced in me an attack of rheumatic ophthalmia, which began at the end of May, 1847, and lasted nearly two years, and would not be shaken off till I left India in March, 1849. In vain I tried diet and dark rooms, change of place, blisters of sorts, and the whole contents of the Pharmacopœia; it was a thorn in the flesh which determined to make itself felt. At intervals I was able to work hard and to visit the adjacent places, such as Kotagherry, the Orange Valley, and St. Catherine's Falls.[17] Meanwhile I wrote letters to the Bombay Times, and studied Telugu and Toda as well as Persian and Arabic, and worked at the ethnology of Hylobius the Hillman, whose country showed mysterious remains of civilized life, gold mining included.
"Ooty" may be a pleasant place, like a water-cure establishment to an invalid in rude health; but to me nothing could be duller or more disagreeable, and my two years of sick leave was consequently reduced to four months. On September 1st, 1847, glad as a partridge-shooter, I rode down the Ghát, and a dozen days later made Calicut, the old capital of Camoens' "Jamorim," the Samriry Rajah. Here I was kindly received, and sent to visit old Calicut and other sights, by Mr. Collector Conolly, whom a Madras civilianship could not defend from Fate. A short time after my departure he was set upon and barbarously murdered in his own verandah, by a band of villain Moplahs,[18] a bastard race got by Arab sires on Hindú dams. He was thus the third of the gallant brothers who came to violent end.
This visit gave me a good opportunity of studying on the spot the most remarkable scene of "The Lusiads," and it afterwards served me in good stead. The Seaforth, Captain Biggs, carried me to Bombay, after passing visits to Mangalore and Goa, in three days of ugly monsoon weather. On October 15th I passed in Persian at the Town Hall, coming out first of some thirty, with a compliment from the examiners; and this was succeeded by something more substantial, in the shape of an "honorarium" of Rs. 1000 from the Court of Directors.
This bright side of the medal had its reverse. A friend, an Irish medico, volunteered to prescribe for me, and strongly recommended frictions of citric ointment (calomel in disguise) round the orbit of the eye, and my perseverance in his prescription developed ugly symptoms of mercurialism, which eventually drove me from India.
My return to Scinde was in the s.s. Dwárká, the little vessel which, in 1853, carried me from Jeddah to Suez, and which, in 1862, foundered at the mouth of the Tapti or Surat river. She belonged to the Steam Navigation Company, Bombay, and she had been brought safely round the Cape by the skipper, a man named Tribe. That "climate" had demoralized him. He set out from Karáchi without even an able seaman who knew the Coast; the Captain and his Mate were drunk and incapable the whole way. As we were about to enter the dangerous port, my fellow-passengers insisted upon my taking Command as Senior Officer, and I ordered the Dwárká's head to be turned westward under the easiest steam, so that next morning we landed safely.
My return to head-quarters of the Survey was a misfortune to my comrades; my eyes forbade regular work, and my friends had to bear my share of the burden. However, there were painless intervals when I found myself able to work at Sindí under Munshi Nandú, and at Arabic under Shaykh Háshim, a small half-Bedawin, who had been imported by me from Bombay. Under him also I began the systematic study of practical Moslem divinity, learned about a quarter of the Korán by heart, and became a proficient at prayer. It was always my desire to visit Meccah during the pilgrimage season; written descriptions by hearsay of its rites and ceremonies were common enough in all languages, European as well as native, but none satisfied me, because none seemed practically to know anything about the matter. So to this preparation I devoted all my time and energy; not forgetting a sympathetic study of Sufi-ism, the Gnosticism of Al-Islam,[19] which would raise me high above the rank of a mere Moslem. I conscientiously went through the chillá, or quarantine of fasting and other exercises, which, by-the-by, proved rather over-exciting to the brain. At times, when overstrung, I relieved my nerves with a course of Sikh religion and literature: the good old priest solemnly initiated me in presence of the swinging Granth, or Naná Shah's Scripture. As I had already been duly invested by a strict Hindú with the Janeo, or "Brahminical thread," my experience of Eastern faiths became phenomenal, and I became a Master-Sufi.
There was a scanty hope of surveying for weak eyes; so I attempted to do my duty by long reports concerning the country and the people, addressed to the Bombay Government, and these were duly printed in its "Selections," which MSS. I have by me. To the local branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, there were sent two papers, "Grammar of the Játakí or Mulltani Language," and "Remarks on Dr. Dorn's Chrestomathy of the Afghan Tongue."[20] Without hearing of Professor Pott, the savant of Halle (and deceased lately), I convinced myself that the Játs of Scinde, a race which extends from the Indus's mouth to the plains of Tartary, give a clue to the origin of the Gypsies as well as to the Getæ and Massagetæ (Great Getæ).
And this induced me to work with the Camel men, who belong to that notorious race, and to bring out a grammar and vocabulary.
Indeed the more sluggish became my sight, the more active became my brain, which could be satisfied only with twelve to fourteen hours a day of alchemy, mnemonics, "Mantih," or Eastern logic, Arabic, Sindi, and Panjábi. In the latter, official examinations were passed before Captain Stack, the only Englishman in the country who had an inkling of the subject.
The spring of 1848, that most eventful year in Europe, brought us two most exciting items of intelligence. The proclamation of the French Republic reached us on April 8th, and on May 2nd came the news of the murder of Anderson and his companion by Náo Mall of Multan.