the seventh day, in the afternoon, we thought we might accomplish our retreat. Accordingly we put our boat into the water, and our things on board, and with a pole pushing the ice from the boat, we made our way along for some distance, when we saw a boat coming in the same manner to meet us. Coming up with her, found it to be the same men who crossed the bay with us on the ice, and who had come to relieve us. They turned their boat about, and we all arrived safely home the same evening without accomplishing our visit to Cunningham's Island.
The inhabitants of the village remained very healthy until July, when a new complaint of the eyes became epidemic among them. It attacked all ages and sexes without distinction, and, with some, would, in a few days, cause total blindness.
This complaint is, I believe, what physicians call the Egyptian Opthalmia.[35] Some, who were very prompt in their applications, were fortunate enough to recover their sight after a considerable time; and others, not made wholly blind, never saw so well as before. Many of the inhabitants were attacked with fever and ague, and these generally escaped the more formidable disease of the eyes.
As for myself, I remained perfectly well until November, when, one morning, my right eye was attacked with inflammation and swelling; and the next morning my left eye was attacked in the same manner. The inflammation gradually increased, so that in about three weeks I was totally blind. My surgeon, a very skilful man, made every exertion for my recovery, and about the middle {57} of December I could discern light; and in ten or twelve days after, could distinguish colors. My surgeon now
