Royal54-01-0214The Country Of The Blind

The National Broadcasting Company presents Transcribe Solowin-Sillivier in Perta Royal. This is Laurence Olivier. Today's play is based upon one of my own most favorite stories, written by an author who in his day foretold many of the miracles which today we treat as commonplace, H. G. Wells.

This particular story deals like so many of his others with the world of his imagination. I shall play the part of Nunyeth, the man who tells the story. Here then is H. T. Wells, the country of the blind. 300 miles and more from Kimboroffo, 100 from the snows of cut a paxi. In the wildest wastes of the Ecuador Andes, there lies that mysterious mountain

valley cut off from the world of men, the country of the blind. Long years ago that valley had been accessible. Indeed, it had been settled and farmed by Peruvians who had fled there from the tyranny of their Spanish ruler. But then in the 17th century, a violent volcanic eruption had brought down one whole side of Mount Aralka. The landslide had completely

cut off the valley from the outside world. And ever since that day, the country of the blind had been no more than a legend. The legend was known to me and I told it to the party of mountaineers to which I was acting as a guide in the attempt to climb Pāraskatopata, the so-called

Matterhorn of the Andi. And you say the valley is somewhat on there? Somewhere. Nobody remembers exactly where it lies. Never has been there for nearly 300 years. But why the country of the blind? One survivor of the original settlers escaped.

He was out of the valley when the earthquake occurred. He said that the valley had everything that man could desire. Sweet water, pasture, good climate. The settlers had done very well there, despite the height and the wildness of the mountains that hemmed them in.