A man believed that the human eye was like some sort of battery that the sun alone could recharge. Avoiding the dangerous glare of the day, he took to watching summer sunsets in the hope that his sight would be much improved for the winter. He persuaded his friends to watch with him, and soon, in various parts of the country, groups of people sat out of doors in the evening, looking westwards.
Before very long, rival societies sprang up to watch the dawn. Sun- watching to recharge sight became endemic.
Controversy arose: the rift between those who looked east in the morning and those who looked west in the evening led to argument, abuse, and ultimately to blows. Cynical observers began to look wets in the morning and east in the evening, and a group of blind satirists got up to face north and south in the middle of the night.