 CHAPTER 33 A ship in dock surrounded by quays and the walls of warehouses has the appearance of a prisoner meditating upon freedom in the sadness of a free spirit put under restraint. Chain cables and stout ropes keep her bound to stone posts at the edge of a paved shore and a birthing master with brass buttons on his coat walks about like a weather beaten and rudy jailer casting jealous watchful glances upon the moorings that federa ship lying passive and still and safe as if lost in deep regrets of her days of liberty and danger on the sea. The swarm of renegades, dockmasters, birthing masters, gatemen, and such like, appear to nurse an immense distrust of the captive ship's resignation. They're never seen chains and ropes enough to satisfy their minds concerned with the safe binding of free ships to the strong, muddy, enslaved earth. You had better put another bite of a hazardous stern, Mr. Mate, is the usual phrase in their mouth. I brand them for renegades because most of them have been sailors in their time. As if the infirmities of old age, the gray hair, the wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, and the knotted veins of the hands were the symptoms of moral poison. They prowl about the quays with an underhand air of gloating over the broken spirit of noble captives. They want more fenders, more breasting ropes. They want more springs, more shackles, more fetters. They want to make ships with volatile souls as motionless as square blocks of stone. They stand on the mud of pavements, these degraded sea dogs, with long lines of railway trucks clanking their couplings behind their backs, and run malevolent glances over your ship from headgear to taff rail, only wishing to tyrannize over the poor creature under the hypocritical cloak of benevolence and care. Here and there cargo cranes looking like instruments of torture for ships swing cruel hooks at the end of long chains. Gangs of dock laborers swarm with muddy feet over the gangways. It is a moving sight, this, of so many men of the earth, earthy, who never cared anything for a ship, trampling unconcerned, brutal, and hobnailed upon her helpless body. Fortunately nothing can deface the beauty of a ship. That sense of a dungeon, that sense of a horrible and degrading misfortune overtaking a creature fair to see and safe to trust, attaches only to ships moored in the docks of great European ports. You feel that they are dishonestly locked up, to be hunted about from wharf to wharf on a dark, greasy square pool of black water as a brutal reword at the end of a faithful voyage. A ship anchored in an open roadstead, with cargo lighters alongside, and her own tackle swinging the burden over the rail, is accomplishing in freedom a function of her life. There is no restraint, there is space, clear water around her and a clear sky above her mastheads, with a landscape of green hills and charming bays opening around her anchorage. She is not abandoned by her men to the tender mercies of shore people. She still shelters and is looked after by her own little devoted band, and you feel that presently she will glide between the headlands and disappear. It is only at home, in dock, that she lies abandoned, shut off from freedom by all the artifices of men that think of quick dispatch and profitable freight. It is only then that the odious rectangular shadows of walls and roofs fall upon her decks with showers of soot. To a man who has never seen the extraordinary nobility, strength, and grace that the devoted generations of ship builders have evolved from some pure nooks of their simple souls, the sight that could be seen five and twenty years ago of a large fleet of clippers moored along the north side of the New South Dock was an inspiring spectacle. Then there was a quarter of a mile of them from the iron dockyard gates guarded by policemen in a long forest-like perspective of masts moored two and two to many stout wooden jetties. Their spars dwarfed with their loftiness the corrugated iron sheds, their jib-booms extended far over the shore, their white and gold figureheads almost dazzling in their purity overhung the straight long quay above the mud and dirt of the wharfside with the busy figures of groups and single men moving to and fro, restless and grimy under their soaring immobility. At tide time you would see one of the loaded ships with batten down hatches drop out of the ranks and float in the clear space of the dock held by lines dark and slender like the first threads of a spider's web extending from her bows and her quarters to the mooring posts on shore. There graceful and still, like a bird ready to spread its wings, she waited till at the opening of the gates a tug or two would hurry in noisily, hovering round her with an air of fuss and solicitude and take her out into the river tending, shepherding her through open bridges through damn light gates between the flat pier heads with a bit of green lawn surrounded by gravel and a white signal mast with yard and gaff flying a couple of dingy blue red or white flags. This new south dock it was its official name round which my earlier professional memories are centered belongs to the group of West India docks together with two smaller and much older basins called import and export respectively both with the greatness of their trade departed from them already picturesque and clean as docks go these twin basins spread side by side the dark luster of their glassy water sparely peopled by a few ships laid up on buoys or tucked far away from each other at the end of sheds in the corners of empty quays where they seem to slumber quietly remote untouched by the bustle of men's affairs in retreat rather than in captivity they were quaint and sympathetic those two homely basins unfurnished and silent with no aggressive display of cranes no apparatus of hurry and work on their narrow shores no railway lines numbered them the knots of laborers trooping in clumsily around the corners of cargo sheds to eat their food in peace out of red cotton handkerchiefs had the air of picnicking by the side of a lonely mountain pool they were restful and i should say very unprofitable those basins where the chief officer of one of the ships involved in the harassing strenuous noisy activity of the new south dock only a few yards away could escape in the dinner hour to stroll unhampered by men and affairs meditating if he chose on the vanity of all things human at one time they must have been full of good old slow west indian men of the square stern type that took their captivity one imagines as stolidly as they had faced the buffeting of the waves with their blunt honest bows and disgorged sugar rum molasses coffee or logwood sedately with their own winch and tackle but when i knew them of exports there was never a sign that one could detect and all the imports i have ever seen were some rare cargos of tropical timber enormous box roughed out of iron trunks grown in the woods about the gulf of mexico they lay piled up in stacks of mighty bowls and it was hard to believe that all this mass of dead and stripped trees had come out of the flanks of a slender innocent looking little bark with as likely as not a homely woman's name ellen this or annie that upon her fine bows but this is generally the case with a discharged cargo once spread at large over the quay it looks the most impossible bulk to have all come there out of that ship alongside they were quiet serene nooks in the busy world of docks these basins where it has never been my good luck to get a berth after some more or less arduous passage but one could see at a glance that men and ships were never hustled there they were so quiet that remembering them well one comes to doubt that they ever existed places of repose for tired ships to dream in places of meditation rather than work where wicked ships the cranky the lazy the wet the bad sea boats the wild steers the capricious the pigheaded the generally ungovernable would have full leisure to take count and repent of their sins sorrowful and naked with their rent garments of sailcloth stripped off them and with the dust and ashes of the london atmosphere upon their mast heads for that the worst of ships would repent if she were ever given time i make no doubt i have known too many of them no ship is wholly bad and now that their bodies that had brave so many tempests have been blown off the face of the sea by a puff of steam the evil and the good together into the limbo of things that have served their time there can be no harm in affirming that in these varnished generations of willing servants there never has been one utterly unredeemable soul in the new south dock there was certainly no time for remorse introspection repentance or any phenomena of inner life either for the captive ships or for their officers from six in the morning till six at night the hard labor of the prison house which rewards the valiance of ships that win the harbor went on steadily great slings of general cargo swinging over the rail to drop plum into the hatchways at the sign of the gangway tender's hand the new south dock was especially a loading dock for the colonies in those great and last days of smart wool clippers good to look at and well exciting to handle some of them were more fair to see than the others many were to put it mildly somewhat overmasted all were expected to make good passages and of all that line of ships whose rigging made a thick enormous network against the sky whose brasses flashed almost as far as the eye of the policemen at the gates could reach there was hardly one that knew of any other port amongst all the ports on the wide earth but London and Sydney or London and Melbourne or London and Adelaide perhaps with Hobart town added for those of smaller tonnage one could almost have believed as her gray whiskered second mate used to say of the old Duke of S that they knew the road to the antipodes better than their own skippers who year in year out took them from London the place of captivity to some Australian port where 25 years ago though moored well and tight enough to the wooden wharves they felt themselves no captives but honored guests chapter 34 these towns of the antipodes not so great then as they are now took an interest in the shipping the running links with home whose numbers confirmed the sense of their growing importance they made it part and parcel of their daily interests this was especially the case in Sydney where from the heart of the fair city down the vista of important streets could be seen the wool clippers lying at the circular quay no walled prison house of a dock that but the integral part of one of the finest most beautiful vast and safe bays the sun ever shone upon now great steam liners lie at these bursts always reserved for the sea aristocracy grand in imposing enough ships but here today and gone next week whereas the general cargo immigrant and passenger clippers of my time rigged with heavy spars and built on fine lines used to remain for months together waiting for their load of wool their names attained the dignity of household words on Sundays and holidays the citizens troop down on visiting bent and the lonely officer on duty solace himself by playing the Cicero especially to the citizenesses with engaging manners and a well-developed sense of the fun that maybe got out of the inspection of a ship's cabins and state rooms the tinkle of more or less untuned cottage pianos floated out of open stern ports till the gas lamps began to twinkle in the streets and the ship's night watchman coming sleepily on duty after his unsatisfactory day slumbers hauled down the flags and fastened a lightened lantern at the break of the gangway the night closed rapidly upon the silent ships with their crews on shore up a short steep ascent by the king's head pub patronized by the cooks and stewards of the fleet the voice of a man crying hot savlois at the end of george street where the cheap eating houses six pence a meal were kept by china mun sun kum on's was not bad is heard at regular intervals i have listened for hours to this most pertinacious peddler i wonder whether he is dead or has made a fortune while sitting on the rail of the old duke of s she's dead poor thing a violent death on the coast of new zealand fascinated by the monotony the regularity the abruptness of the recurring cry and so exasperated at the absurd spell that i wished the fellow would choke himself to death with a mouthful of his own infamous wares a stupid job and fit for only an old man my comrades used to tell me to be the night watchman of a captive though honored ship and generally the oldest of the able seaman in a ship's crew does get it but sometimes neither the oldest nor any other fairly steady seaman is forthcoming ships crews had the trick of melting away swiftly in those days so probably on account of my youth innocence and pensive habits which made me sometimes dilatory in my work about the rigging i was suddenly nominated in our chief mate mr b's most sardonic tones to that enviable situation i do not regret the experience the nighthumors of the town descended from the street to the water side in the still watches of the night larrykins rushing down in bands to settle some quarrel by a stand-up fight away from the police in an indistinct ring half hidden by piles of cargo with the sounds of blows a groan now and then the stamping of feet and the cry of time rising suddenly above the sinister and excited murmurs night prowlers pursued or pursuing with a stifled shriek followed by a profound silence or slinking stealthily alongside like ghosts and addressing me from the quay below in mysterious tones with incomprehensible propositions the cab men too who twice a week on the night when the asn company's passenger boat was due to arrive used to range a battalion of blazing lamps opposite the ship were very amusing in their way they got down from their perches and told each other impolite stories in racy language every word of which reached me distinctly over the bulwarks as i sat smoking on the main hatch on one occasion i had an hour or so of a most intellectual conversation with a person whom i could not see distinctly a gentleman from england he said with a cultivated voice i on deck and he on the quay sitting on the case of a piano landed out of our hold that very afternoon and smoking a cigar which smelled very good we touched in our discourse upon science politics natural history and operatic singers then after remarking abruptly you seem to be rather intelligent my man he informed me pointedly that his name was mr senior and walked off to his hotel i suppose shadows shadows i think i saw a white whisker as he turned under the lamppost it is a shock to think that in the natural course of nature he must be dead by now there was nothing to object to in his intelligence but a little dogmatism perhaps and his name was senior mr senior the position had its drawbacks however one wintry blustering dark night in july as i stood sleepily out of the rain under the break of the poop something resembling an ostrich dashed up the gangway i say ostrich because the creature though it ran on two legs appeared to help its progress by working a pair of short wings it was a man however only his coat ripped up the back and flapping in two halves above his shoulders gave him that weird and foul like appearance at least i suppose it was his coat for it was impossible to make him out distinctly how he managed to come so straight upon me at speed and without a stumble over a strange deck i cannot imagine he must have been able to see in the dark better than a cat he overwhelmed me with panting and treaties to let him take shelter till morning in our folxel following my strict orders i refused his request mildly at first in a sterner tone as he insisted with growing impudence for god's sakes let me matey some of them are after me and i've got hold of a ticker here you clear out of this i said don't be hard on a chap old man he whined pitifully now then get ashore at once do you hear silence he appeared to cringe mute as if words had failed him through grief then bang came a concussion and a great flash of light in which he vanished leaving me prone in my back with the most abominable black eye that anybody ever got in the faithful discharge of duty shadows shadows i hope he escaped the enemies he was fleeing from to live and flourish to this day but his fist was uncommonly hard and his aim miraculously true in the dark there were other experiences less painful and more funny for the most part with one amongst them of a dramatic complexion but the greatest experience of them all was mr b our chief mate himself he used to go ashore every night to foregather in some hotels parlor with his crony the mate of the bark cicero lying on the other side of the circular quay late at night i would hear from afar their stumbling footsteps and their voices raised in endless argument the mate of the cicero was seeing his friend on board they would continue their senseless and muddy discourse in tones of profound friendship for half an hour or so at the shore end of our gangway and then i would hear mr b insisting that he must see the other on board his ship and away they would go their voices still conversing with excessive amity being heard moving all around the harbor it happened more than once that they would thus perambulate three or four times the distance each seeing the other on board his ship out of pure and disinterested affection then through sheer weariness or perhaps in a moment of forgetfulness they would manage to part from each other somehow and by and by the planks of our long gangway would bend and creak under the weight of mr b coming on board for good at last on the rail his burly form would stop and stand swaying watchman sir a pause he waited for a moment of steadiness before negotiating the three steps of the inside ladder from rail to deck and the watchman taught by experience would forbear offering help which would be received as an insult at that particular stage of the mate's return but many times i trembled for his neck he was a heavy man then with a rush and a thump it would be done he never had to pick himself up but it took him a minute or so to pull himself together after the descent watchman sir captain aboard yes sir pause dog aboard yes sir pause our dog was a gaunt and unpleasant beast more like a wolf in poor health than a dog and i never noticed mr b at any other time show the slightest interest in the doings of the animal but that question never failed him let's have your arm to steady me along i was always prepared for that request he leaned on me heavily till near enough the cabin door to catch hold of the handle then he would let go my arm at once that'll do i can manage now and he could manage he could manage to find his way into his birth light his lamp get into his bed a and get out of it when i called him at half past five the first man on deck lifting the cup of morning coffee to his lips with a steady hand ready for duty as though he had virtuously slept 10 solid hours a better chief officer than many a man who had never tasted grog in his life he could manage all that but could never manage to get on in life only once he failed to seize the cabin door handle at the first grab he waited a little tried again and again failed his weight was growing heavier on my arm he sighed slowly damn that handle without letting go his hold of me he turned about his face lit up bright as day by the full moon i wish you were out at sea he growled savagely yes sir i felt the need to say something because he hung on me as if lost breathing heavily ports are no good ships rot men go to the devil i kept still and after a while he repeated with a sigh i wish she were at sea out of this so do i sir i ventured holding my shoulder he turned upon me you what's that to you where she is you don't drink and even on that night he managed it at last he got hold of the handle but he did not manage to light his lamp i don't think he even tried though in the morning as usual he was the first on deck bullnecked curly-headed watching the hands turn to with his sardonic expression and unflinching gaze i met him ten years afterwards casually unexpectedly in the street on coming out of my consignee office i was not likely to have forgotten him with his i can manage now he recognized me at once remembered my name and in what ship i had served under his orders he looked me over from head to foot what are you doing here he asked i am commanding a little bark i said loading here for maritias then thoughtlessly i added and what are you doing mister b i he said looking at me unflinchingly with his old sardonic grin i am looking for something to do i felt i would rather have bitten out my tongue his jet black curly hair had turned iron gray he was scrupulously neat as ever but frightfully threadbare his shiny boots were worn down at heel but he forgave me and we drove off together in a handsome to dine on board my ship he went over her conscientiously praised her heartily congratulated me on my command with absolute sincerity at dinner as i offered him wine and beer he shook his head and as i sat looking at him interrogatively muttered in an undertone i've given up all that after dinner we came again on deck it seemed as though he could not tear himself away from the ship we were fitting some new lower rigging and he hung about approving suggesting giving me advice in his old manner twice he addressed me as my boy and corrected himself quickly to captain my mate was about to leave me to get married but i concealed the fact from mr b i was afraid he would ask me to give him the birth in some ghastly jocular hint that i could not refuse to take i was afraid it would have been impossible i could not have given orders to mr b and i am sure he would not have taken them from me very long he could not have managed that though he had managed to break himself from drink too late he said goodbye at last as i watched his burly bullnecked figure walk away up the street i wondered with a sinking heart whether he had much more than the price of a night's lodging in his pocket and i understood that if that very minute i were to call out after him he would not even turn his head he too is no more than a shadow but i seem to hear his words spoken on the moonlit deck of the old duke ports are no good ships rot men go to the devil end of chapter 34 chapters 35 and 36 of the mirror of the sea this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox dot org the mirror of the sea by joseph conrad initiation chapter 35 ships exclaimed an elderly seaman in clean shore togs ships and his keen glance turning away from my face ran along the vista of magnificent figureheads that in the late seventies used to overhang in a serried rank the muddy pavement by the side of the new south dock ships are all right it's the men in them 50 hulls at least molded on lines of beauty and speed hulls of wood of iron expressing in their forms the highest achievement of modern shipbuilding lay moored all in a row stem to quay as if assembled there for an exhibition not of a great industry but of a great art their colors were gray black dark green with a narrow strip of yellow molding defining their sheer or with a row of painted ports decking in warlike decoration their robust flanks of cargo carriers that would know no triumph but of speed in carrying a burden no glory other than of a long service no victory but that of an endless obscure contest with the sea the great empty hulls with swept holds just out of dry dock with their paint glistening freshly sat high sided with ponderous dignity alongside the wooden jetties looking more like unmovable buildings than things meant to go afloat others half loaded far on the way to recover the true sea physiognomy of a ship brought down to her load line looked more accessible their less steeply slanting gangways seem to invite the strolling sailors in search of a berth to walk on board and try for a chance with the chief mate the guardian of a ship's efficiency as if anxious to remain unperceived amongst their over topping sisters two or three finished ships floated low with an air of straining at the leash of their level head fasts exposing to view their clear decks and covered hatches prepared to drop stern first out of the laboring ranks displaying the true comeliness of form which only her proper sea trim gives to a ship and for a good quarter of a mile from the dockyard gate to the farthest corner where the old housed in hulk the president drill ship then of the naval reserve used to lie with her frigate side rubbing against the stone of the quay above all these hulls ready and unready 150 lofty masts more or less held out the web of their rigging like an immense net in whose clothes mesh black against the sky the heavy yard seemed to be entangled and suspended it was a sight the humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by the faithfulness of her life and this was the place where one beheld the aristocracy of ships it was a noble gathering of the fairest and the swiftest each bearing at the bow the carved emblem of her name as in a gallery of plaster casts figures of women with mural crowns women with flowing robes with gold fillets on their hair or blue scarves round their wastes stretching out rounded arms as if to point the way heads of men helmeted or bare full lengths of warriors of kings of statesmen of lords and princesses all white from top to toe with here and there a dusky turban figure bedesoned in many colors of some eastern sultan or hero all inclined forward under the slant of mighty bowsprit as if eager to begin another run of 11 000 miles in their leaning attitudes these were the fine figureheads of the finest ships afloat and why unless for the love of the life those effigies shared with us in their wandering impassivity should one try to reproduce in words an impression of whose fidelity there can be no critic and no judge since such an exhibition of the art of shipbuilding and the art of figurehead carving as was seen from year's end to year's end in the open air gallery of the new south dock no man's eye shall behold again all that patient pale company of queens and princesses of kings and warriors of allegorical women of heroines and statesmen and heathen gods crowned helmeted bareheaded has run for good off the sea stretching to the last above the tumbling foam their fair rounded arms holding out their spears swords shields tridents in the same unwearyed striving forward pose and nothing remains but lingering perhaps in the memory of a few men the sound of their names vanished a long time ago from the first page of the great london dailies from big posters in railway stations and the doors of shipping offices from the minds of sailors dock masters pilots and tugmen from the hail of gruff voices and the flutter of signal flags exchanged between ships closing upon each other and drawing apart in the open immensity of the sea the elderly respectable seaman withdrawing his gaze from that multitude of spars gave me a glance to make sure of our fellowship in the craft and mystery of the sea we had met casually and had got into contact as i had stopped near him my attention being caught by the same peculiarity he was looking at in the rigging of an obviously new ship a ship with her reputation all to make yet in the talk of the seaman who were to share their life with her her name was already on her lips i had heard it uttered between two thick redneck fellows of the semi nautical type at the fen church street railway station where in those days the everyday mail crowd was attired in jersey and pilot cough mostly and had the air of being more convenient with the times of high water than with the times of the trains i had noticed that new ship's name on the first page of my morning paper i had stared at the unfamiliar grouping of its letters blew on white ground on the advertisement boards whenever the train came to a standstill alongside one of the shabby wooden war flight platforms of the dock railway line she had been named with proper observances on the day she came off the stocks no doubt but she was very far yet from having a name untried ignorant of the ways of the sea she had been thrust amongst that renowned company of ships to load for her maiden voyage there was nothing to vouch for her soundness and the worth of her character but the reputation of the building yard when she was launched headlong into the world of waters she looked modest to me i imagined her diffident lying very quiet with her side nestling shyly against the wharf to which she was made fast with very new lines intimidated by the company of her tried and experienced sisters already familiar with all the violences of the ocean and the exacting love of men they had had more long voyages to make their names in than she had known weeks of carefully tended life for a new ship receives as much attention as if she were a young bride even crabbed old dock masters look at her with benevolent eyes in her shyness at the threshold of a laborious and uncertain life where so much is expected of a ship she could not have been better heartened and comforted had she only been able to hear and understand then by the tone of deep conviction in which my elderly respectable seaman repeated the first part of his saying ships are all right his civility prevented him from repeating the other bitter part it had occurred to him that it was perhaps indelicate to insist he had recognized in me a ship's officer very possibly looking for a birth like himself and so far a comrade but still a man belonging to that sparsely peopled after end of a ship where a great part of her reputation as a good ship in seaman's parlance is made or marred can you say that of all ships without exception i asked being in an idle mood because if an obvious ship's officer i was not as a matter of fact down at the docks to look for a birth an occupation as engrossing as gambling and as little favorable to the free exchange of ideas besides being destructive of the kindly temper needed for casual intercourse with one's fellow creatures you can always put up with them opine the respectable seaman judiciously he was not a verse from talking either if he had come down to the dock to look for a birth he did not seem oppressed by anxiety as to his chances he had the serenity of a man whose estimable character is fortunately expressed by his personal appearance in an unobtrusive yet convincing manner which no chief officer in want of hands could resist and true enough i learned presently that the mate of the hyperion had taken down his name for quartermaster we sign on friday and join next day for the morning tide he remarked in a deliberate careless tone which contrasted strongly with his evident readiness to stand there yarning for an hour or so with an utter stranger hyperion i said i don't remember ever seeing that ship anywhere what sort of a name has she got it appeared from his discursive answer that she had not had much of a name one way or another she was not very fast it took no fool though to steer her straight he believed some years ago he had seen her in calcutta and he remembered being told by somebody then that on her passage up the river she had carried away both her haze pipes but that might have been the pilot's fault just now yarning with the apprentices on board he had heard that this very voyage brought up in the downs outward bound she broke her sheer struck adrift and lost an anchor and chain but that might have occurred through want of careful tending in a tideway all the same this looked as though she were pretty hard on her ground tackle didn't it she seemed a heavy ship to handle anyway for the rest as she had a new captain and a new mate this voyage he understood one couldn't say how she would turn out in such marine shore talk as this is the name of a ship slowly established her fame made for her the tale of her qualities and of her defects kept her idiosyncrasies contented upon with the zest of personal gossip her achievements made much of her faults glossed over as things that being without remedy in our imperfect world should not be dwelt upon too much by men who with the help of ships rest out a bitter living from the rough grasp of the sea all that talk makes up her name which is handed over from one crew to another without bitterness without animosity with the indulgence of mutual dependence and with the feeling of close association in the exercise of her perfections and in the danger of her defects this feeling explains men's pride in ships ships are all right as my middle-aged respectable quartermaster said with much conviction and some irony but they are not exactly what may make them they have their own nature they can of themselves minister to your self-esteem by the demand their qualities make upon our skill and their shortcomings upon our hardiness and endurance which is the more flattering exaction it is hard to say but there is the fact that in listening for upwards of 20 years to the sea talk that goes on a float and ashore I have never detected the true note of animosity I won't deny that at sea sometimes the note of profanity was audible enough in those chiding interpolations wet cold weary seaman addresses to his ship and in moments of exasperation is disposed to extend to all ships that ever were launched to the whole everlasting exacting brood that swims in deep waters and I have heard curses launched at the unstable element itself whose fascination outlasting the accumulated experience of ages had captured him as it had captured the generations of his forebears for all that has been said of the love that certain natures on shore have professed to feel for it for all the celebrations it had been the object of in prose and song the sea has never been friendly to man at most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness and playing the part of dangerous a better of worldwide ambitions faithful to no race after the manner of the kindly earth receiving no impress from valor and toil and self-sacrifice recognizing no finality of dominion the sea has never adopted the cause of its masters like those lands where the victorious nations of mankind have taken root rocking their cradles and setting up their gravestones he man or people who putting his trust in the friendship of the sea neglects the strength and cunning of his right hand is a fool as if it were too great too mighty for common virtues the ocean has no compassion no faith no law no memory its fickleness is to be held true to men's purposes only by an undaunted resolution and by a sleepless armed jealous vigilance in which perhaps there has always been more hate than love odi etamo may well be the confession of those who consciously or blindly have surrendered their existence to the fascination of the sea all the tempestuous passions of mankind's young days the love of loot and the love of glory the love of adventure and the love of danger with the great love of the unknown and vast dreams of dominion and power have passed like images reflected from a mirror leaving no record upon the mysterious face of the sea impenetrable and heartless the sea has given nothing of itself to the suitors for its precarious favors unlike the earth it cannot be subjugated at any cost of patience and toil for all its fascination that has lured so many to a violent death its immensity has never been loved as the mountains the plains the desert itself have been loved indeed i suspect that leaving aside the protestations and the tributes of writers who one is safe in saying care for a little else in the world than the rhythm of their lines and the cadence of their phrase the love of the sea to which some men and nations confess so readily is a complex sentiment wherein pride enters for much necessarily for not a little and the love of ships the untiring servants of our hopes and our self-esteem for the best and most genuine part for the hundreds who have reviled the sea beginning with Shakespeare in the line more fell than hunger anguish or the sea down to the last obscure sea dog of the old model having but few words and still fewer thoughts there could not be found i believe one sailor who has ever coupled a curse with the good or bad name of a ship if ever his profanity provoked by the hardships of the sea went so far as to touch his ship it would be lightly as a hand may without sin be laid in the way of kindness on a woman chapter 36 the love that is given to ships is profoundly different from the love men feel for every other work of their hands the love they bear to their houses for instance because it is untainted by the pride of possession the pride of skill the pride of responsibility the pride of endurance there may be but otherwise it is a disinterested sentiment no seaman ever cherished a ship even if she belonged to him merely because of the profit she put in his pocket no one i think ever did for a ship owner even of the best has always been outside the pale of that sentiment embracing in the feeling of intimate equal fellowship the ship and the man backing each other against the implacable if sometimes dissembled hostility of their world of waters the sea this truth must be confessed has no generosity no display of manly qualities courage hardy hood endurance faithfulness has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power the ocean has the consciousness temper of a savage autocrat spoiled by much adulation he cannot brook the slightest appearance of defiance and has remained the irreconcilable enemy of ships and men ever since ships and men had the unheard of audacity to go afloat together in the face of his frown from that day he has gone on swallowing up fleets and men without his resentment being glutted by the number of victims by so many wrecked ships and wrecked lives today as ever he is ready to be guile and betray to smash and to drown the incorrigible optimism of men who backed by the fidelity of ships are trying to rest from him the fortune of their house the dominion of their world are only a dole of food for their hunger if not always in the hot mood to smash he is always stealthily ready for a drowning the most amazing wonder of the deep is its unfathomable cruelty i felt its dread for the first time in mid-atlantic one day many years ago when we took off the crew of a danish brig homeward bound from the west indies a thin silvery mist softened the calm and majestic splendor of light without shadows seemed to render the sky less remote and the ocean less immense it was one of the days when the might of the sea appears indeed lovable like the nature of a strong man in moments of quiet intimacy at sunrise we had made out a black speck to the westward apparently suspended high up in the void behind a stirring shimmering veil of silvery blue gauze that seemed at times to stir and float in the breeze which fanned us slowly along the peace of that enchanting forenoon was so profound so untroubled that it seemed that every word pronounced loudly on our deck would penetrate to the very heart of that infinite mystery born from the conjunction of water and sky we did not raise our voices a waterlog derelict i think sir said the second officer quietly coming down from aloft with the binoculars in their case slung across his shoulders and our captain without a word signed to the helmsman to steer for the black speck presently we made out a low jagged stump sticking up forward all that remained hovered departed masts the captain was expatiating in a low conversational tone to the chief mate upon the danger of these derelicts and upon his dread of coming upon them at night when suddenly a man forward screamed out there's people on board of her sir i see them in a most extraordinary voice a voice never heard before in our ship the amazing voice of a stranger it gave the signal for a sudden tumult of shouts the watch below ran up the folksle head in a body the cook dashed out of the galley everybody saw the poor fellows now they were there and all at once our ship which had the well-earned name of being without a rival for speed in light winds seemed to us to have lost the power of motion as if the sea becoming viscous had clung to her sides and yet she moved immensity the inseparable companion of a ship's life chose that day to breathe upon her as gently as a sleeping child the clamor of our excitement had died out and our living ship famous for never losing steerage way as long as there was air enough to float a feather stole without a ripple silent and white as a ghost towards her mutilated and wounded sister come upon at the point of death in the sunlit haze of a calm day at sea with the binoculars glued to his eyes the captain said in a quavering tone they are waving to us with something aft there he put down the glasses on the skylight brustly and began to walk about the poop a shirt or a flag he ejaculated irritably can't make it out some damn rag or other he took a few more turns on the poop glancing down over the rail now and then to see how fast we were moving his nervous footsteps rang sharply in the quiet of the ship where the other men all looking the same way had forgotten themselves in a staring immobility this will never do he cried out suddenly lower the boats at once down with them before i jumped into mine he took me aside as being an inexperienced junior for a word of warning you look out as you come alongside that she doesn't take you down with you understand he murmured this confidentially so that none of the men at the falls should overhear and i was shocked heavens as if in such an emergency one stop to think of danger i exclaimed to myself mentally in scorn of such cold blooded caution it takes many lessons to make a real seaman and i got my rebuke at once my experience commander seemed in one searching glance to read my thoughts on my ingenuous face what you're going for is to save life not to drown your boat's crew for nothing he growled severely in my ear but as we shoved off he leaned over and cried out it all rests on the power of your arms men give way for life we made a race of it and i would never have believed that a common boat's crew of a merchantman could keep up with so much determined fierceness in the regular swing of their stroke what our captain had clearly perceived before we left had become plain to all of us since the issue of our enterprise hung on a hair above that abyss of waters which will not give up its dead till the day of judgment it was a race of two ships boats matched against death for a prize of nine men's lives and death had a long start we saw the crew of the brig from afar working at the pumps still pumping on that wreck which already had settled so far down that the gentle low swell over which our boats rose and fell easily without a check to their speed welling up almost level with her head bales plucked at the ends of broken gear swinging desolately under her naked bowsprit we could not in all conscious have picked out a better day for our regatta had we had the free choice of all the days that ever dawned upon the lonely struggles and solitary agonies of ships since the Norse rovers first steered to the westward against the run of Atlantic waves it was a very good race at the finish there was not an oars length between the first and second boat with death coming in a good third on the top of the very next smooth swell for all one new to the contrary the scuppers of the brig gurgled softly all together when the water rising against her sides subsided sleepily with a low wash as if playing about an immovable rock her bulwarks were gone for an aft and one saw her bare deck low lying like a raft and swept clean of boats spars houses of everything except the ring bolts and the heads of the pumps i had one dismal glimpse of it as i braced myself up to receive upon my breast the last man to leave her the captain who literally let himself fall into my arms it had been a weirdly silent rescue a rescue without a hail without a single uttered word without a gesture or a sign without a conscious exchange of glances up to the very last moment those on board stuck to their pumps which spouted two clear streams of water upon their bare feet their brown skin shown through the wrents of their shirts and the two small bunches of half naked tattered men went on bowing from the waist to each other in their back breaking labor up and down absorbed with no time for a glance over the shoulder at the help that was coming to them as we dashed unregarded alongside a voice let out one only one horse howl of command and then just as they stood without caps with the salt drying gray in the wrinkles and folds of their hairy haggard faces blinking stupidly at us their red eyelids they made a bolt away from the handles tottering and jostling each other and positively flung themselves over upon our very heads the clatter they made tumbling into the boats had an extraordinarily destructive effect upon the illusion of tragic dignity our self-esteem had thrown over the contests of mankind with the sea on that exquisite day of gently breathing peace and veiled sunshine perished my romantic love to what men's imagination had proclaimed the most august aspect of nature the cynical indifference of the sea to the merits of human suffering and courage laid bare in this ridiculous panicked tainted performance extorted from the dire extremity of nine good and honorable seaman revolted me i saw the duplicity of the sea's most tender mood it was so because it could not help itself but the odd respect of the early days was gone i felt ready to smile bitterly at its enchanting charm and glare viciously at its furies in a moment before we shoved off i had looked coolly at the life of my choice its illusions were gone but its fascination remained i had become a seaman at last we pulled hard for a quarter of an hour then laid on our oars waiting for our ship she was coming down on us with swelling sails looking delicately tall and exquisitely noble through the mist the captain of the brig who sat in the stern sheets by my side with his face in his hands raised his head and began to speak with a sort of somber volubility they had lost their masks and sprung a leak in a hurricane drifted for weeks always at the pump meant more bad weather the ships they cited failed to make them out the leak gained upon them slowly and the seas had left them nothing to make a raft of it was very hard to see ship after ship passed by at a distance as if everybody had agreed that we must be left to drown he added but they went on trying to keep the brig afloat as long as possible and working the pumps constantly on insufficient food mostly raw till yesterday evening he continued monotonously just as the sun went down the men's hearts broke he made an almost imperceptible pause here and went on again with exactly the same intonation they told me the brig could not be saved and they thought they had done enough for themselves i said nothing to that it was true it was no mutiny i had nothing to say to them they lay about aft all night as still as so many dead men i did not lie down i kept the lookout when the first light came i saw your ship at once i waited for more light the breeze began to fail on my face then i shouted out as loud as i was able look at that ship but only two men got up very slowly and came to me at first only we three stood alone for a long time watching you coming down to us and feeling the breeze dropped to a calm almost but afterwards others too rose one after another and by and by i had all my crew behind me i turned around and said to them that they could see the ship was coming our way but in this small breeze she might come too late after all unless we turned two and tried to keep the brig afloat long enough to give you time to save us all i spoke like that to them and then i gave the command to man the pumps he gave the command and gave the example to by going himself to the handles but it seems that these men did actually hang back for a moment looking at each other dubiously before they followed him he broke out into a most unexpected imbecile pathetic nervous little giggle their hearts were broken so they had been played with too long he explained apologetically lowering his eyes and became silent 25 years is a long time a quarter of the century is a dim and distant past but to this day i remember the dark brown feet hands and faces of two of these men whose hearts had been broken by the sea they were lying very still on their sides on the bottom boards between the thwarts curled up like dogs my boats crew leaning over the looms of their oars stared and listened as if at the play the master of the brig looked up suddenly to ask me what day it was they had lost the date when i told him it was sunday the 22nd he frowned making some mental calculation then nodded twice sadly to himself staring at nothing his aspect was miserably unkempt and wildly sorrowful had it not been for the unquenchable candor of his blue eyes whose unhappy tired glance every moment sought his abandoned sinking brig as if he could find rest nowhere else he would have appeared mad but he was too simple to go mad too simple with that manly simplicity which alone can bear men unscathed in mind and body through an encounter with the deadly playfulness of the sea or with its less abominable fury neither angry nor playful nor smiling it enveloped our distant ship growing bigger as she neared us our boats with the rescued men and the dismantled hull of the brig we were leaving behind in the large and placid embrace of its quietness half lost in the fair haze as if in a dream of infinite and tender clemency there was no frown no wrinkle on its face not a ripple and the run of the slight swell was so smooth that it resembled the graceful undulation of a piece of shimmering gray silk shot with gleams of green we pulled an easy stroke but when the master of the brig after a glance over his shoulder stood up with a low exclamation my men feathered their oars instinctively without an order and the boat lost her way he was steadying himself on my shoulder with a strong grip while his other arm flung up rigidly pointed a denunciatory finger at the immense tranquility of the ocean after his first exclamation which stopped the swing of our oars he made no sound but his whole attitude seemed to cry out an indignant behold i could not imagine what vision of evil had come to him i was startled and the amazing energy of his immobilized gesture made my heart beat faster with the anticipation of something monstrous and unsuspected the stillness around us became crushing for a moment the succession of silky undulations ran on innocently i saw each of them swell up the misty line of the horizon far far away beyond the derelict brig and the next moment with a slight friendly toss of our boat it had passed under us and was gone the lulling cadence of the rise and fall the invariable gentleness of this irresistible force the great charm of the deep waters warmed my breast deliciously like the subtle poison of a love potion but all this lasted only a few soothing seconds before i jumped up to making the boat roll like the various landlubber something startling mysterious hastily confused was taking place i watched it with incredulous and fascinated awe as one watches the confused swift movements of some deed of violence done in the dark as if at a given signal the run of the smooth undulations seemed checked suddenly around the brig by a strange optical delusion the whole sea appeared to rise upon her in one overwhelming heave of its silky surface where in one spot a smother of foam broke out ferociously and then the effort subsided it was all over and the smooth swell ran on as before from the horizon in uninterrupted cadence of motion passing under us with a slight friendly toss of our boat far away where the brig had been an angry white stain undulating on the surface of steely gray waters shot with gleams of green diminished swiftly without a hiss like a patch of pure snow melting in the sun and the great stillness after this initiation into the sea's implacable hate seemed full of dread thoughts and shadows of disaster gone ejaculated from the depths of his chest my bowman in a final tone he spat in his hands and took a bitter grip on his oar the captain of the brig lowered his rigid arm slowly and looked at our faces in a solemnly conscious silence which called upon us to share in his simple-minded marveling awe all at once he sat down by my side and leaned forward earnestly at my boat's crew who swinging together in a long easy stroke kept their eyes fixed upon him faithfully no ship could have done so well he addressed them firmly after a moment of strained silence during which he seemed with trembling lips to seek for words fit to bear such high testimony she was small but she was good i had no anxiety she was strong last voyage i had my wife and two children in her no other ship could have stood so long the weather she had to live through for days and days before we got this masted a fortnight ago she was fairly worn out and that's all you may believe me she lasted under us for days and days but she could not last forever it was long enough i am glad it is over no better ship was ever left to sink at sea on such a day as this he was competent to pronounce the funereal oration of a ship this son of ancient sea folk whose national existence so little stained by the excesses of manly virtues had demanded nothing but the nearest foothold from the earth by the merits of his sea wise forefathers and by the artlessness of his heart he was made fit to deliver this excellent discourse there was nothing wanting in its orderly arrangement neither piety nor faith nor the tribute of praise due to the worthy dead with the edifying recital of their achievement she had lived he had loved her she had suffered and he was glad she was at rest it was an excellent discourse and it was orthodox too in its fidelity to the cardinal article of a seamen's faith of which it was a single-minded confession ships are all right they are they who live with the sea have got to hold by that creed first and last and it came to me as i glanced at him sideways that some men were not altogether unworthy in honor and conscience to pronounce the funereal eulogium of a ship's constancy in life and death after this sitting by my side with his loosely clasped hands hanging between his knees he uttered no word made no movement till the shadow of our ship sails fell on the boat when at the loud cheer greeting the return of the victors with their prize he lifted his troubled face with a faint smile of pathetic indulgence this smile of the worthy descendant of the most ancient sea folk whose audacity and hardy hood had left no trace of greatness and glory upon the waters completed the circle of my initiation there was an infinite depth of hereditary wisdom in its pitying sadness it made the hearty burst of cheering sound like a childish noise of triumph our crew shouted with immense confidence honest souls as if anybody could ever make sure of having prevailed against the sea which has betrayed so many ships of great name so many proud men so many towering ambitions of fame power wealth greatness as i brought the boat under the falls my captain in high good humor leaned over spreading his red and freckled elbows on the rail and called down to me sarcastically out of the depths of his cynic philosophers beard so you have brought the boat back after all have you sarcasm was his way and the most that can be said for it is that it was natural this did not make it lovable but it is decorous and expedient to fall in with one's commanders way yes i brought the boat back all right sir i answered and the good man believe me it was not for him to discern upon me the marks of my recent initiation and yet i was not exactly the same youngster who had taken the boat away all impatience for a race against death with the prize of nine men's lives at the end already i looked with other eyes upon the sea i knew it capable of betraying the generous ardor of youth as implacably as indifferent to good and evil it would have betrayed the basest greed or the noblest heroism my conception of its magnanimous greatness was gone and i looked upon the true sea the sea that plays with men till their hearts are broken and wears stout ships to death nothing can touch the brooding bitterness of its heart open to all and faithful to none it exercises its fascination for the undoing of the best to love it is not well it knows no bond of plighted troth no fidelity to misfortune to long companionship to long devotion the promise it holds out perpetually is very great but the only secret of its possession is strength strength the jealous sleepless strength of a man guarding a coveted treasure within his gates end of chapter 36 chapters 37 38 and 39 of the mirror of the sea this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libra vox.org the mirror of the sea by joseph conrad the nursery of the craft chapter 37 the cradle of overseas traffic and of the art of naval combats the Mediterranean apart from all the associations of adventure and glory the common heritage of all mankind makes a tender appeal to a seaman it has sheltered the infancy of his craft he looks upon it as a man may look at a vast nursery in an old old mansion where innumerable generations of his own people have learned to walk I say his own people because in a sense all sailors belong to one family all are descended from that adventurous and shaggy ancestor who be striding a shapeless log and paddling with a crooked branch accomplished the first coasting trip in a sheltered bay ringing with the admiring howls of his tribe it is a matter of regret that all those brothers in craft and feeling whose generations have learned to walk a ship's deck in that nursery have been also more than once fiercely engaged in cutting each other's throats there but life apparently has such exigencies without human propensity to murder and other sorts of unrighteousness there would have been no historical heroism it is a consoling reflection and then if one examines impartially the deeds of violence they appear of but small consequence from Salamis to Actium through La Panto and the Nile to the naval massacre of Navarino not to mention other armed encounters of lesser interest all the blood heroically spilt into the Mediterranean has not stained with a single trail of purple the deep azure of its classic waters of course it may be argued that battles have shaped the destiny of mankind the question whether they have shaped it well would remain open however but it would be hardly worth discussing it is very probable that had the battle of Salamis never been fought the face of the world would have been much as we behold it now fashioned by the mediocre inspiration and the short-sighted labors of men from a long and miserable experience of suffering injustice disgrace and aggression the nations of the earth are mostly swayed by fear fear of the sort that a little cheap oratory turns easily to rage hate and violence innocent guileless fear has been the cause of many wars not of course the fear of war itself which in the evolution of sentiments and ideas has come to be regarded as a half mystic and glorious ceremony with certain fashionable rights and preliminary incantations wherein the conception of its true nature has been lost to apprehend the true aspect force and morality of war as a natural function of mankind one requires a feather in the hair and a ring in the nose or a better still teeth filed to a point and a tattooed breast unfortunately a return to such simple ornamentation is impossible we are bound to the chariot of progress there is no going back and as bad luck would have it our civilization which has done so much for the comfort and adornment of our bodies and the elevation of our minds has made lawful killing frightfully and needlessly expensive the whole question of improved armaments has been approached by the governments of the earth in a spirit of nervous and unreflecting haste whereas the right way was lying plainly before them and had only to be pursued with calm determination the learned vigils and labors of a certain class of inventors should have been rewarded with honorable liberality as justice demanded and the bodies of the inventors should have been blown to pieces by means of their own perfected explosives and improved weapons with extreme publicity as the commonest prudence dictated by this method the order of research in that direction would have been restrained without infringing the sacred privileges of science for the lack of a little cool thinking in our guides and masters this course has not been followed and the beautiful simplicity has been sacrificed for no real advantage a frugal mind cannot defend itself from considerable bitterness when reflecting that at the battle of actium which was fought for no less a stake than the dominion of the world the fleet of octavianus caesar and the fleet of antonius including the egyptian division and cleopatra's galley with purple sails probably cost less than two modern battleships or as the modern naval book jargon has it two capital units but no amount of liberally book jargon can disguise a fact well calculated to afflict the soul of every sound economist it is not likely that the mediterranean will ever behold a battle with a greater issue but when the time comes for another historical fight its bottom will be enriched as never before by a quantity of jagged scrap iron paid for at pretty nearly its weight in gold by the diluted populations inhabiting the aisles and continents of this planet chapter 38 happy he who like ulysses has made an adventurous voyage and there is no such sea for adventurous voyages as the mediterranean the inland sea which the ancients looked upon as so vast and so full of wonders and indeed it was terrible and wonderful for it is we alone who swayed by the audacity of our minds and the tremors of our hearts are the sole artisans of all the wonder and romance of the world it was for the mediterranean sailors that fair haired sirens sang among the black rocks seething in white foam and mysterious voices spoke in the darkness above the moving wave voices menacing seductive or prophetic like that voice heard at the beginning of the christian era by the master of an african vessel in the gulf of serta whose calm nights are full of strange murmurs and flitting shadows it called him by name bidding him go and tell all men that the great god pan was dead but the great legend of the mediterranean the legend of traditional song and grave history lives fascinating and immortal in our minds the dark and fearful sea of the subtle ulysses wanderings agitated by the wrath of olympian gods harboring on its aisles the fury of strange monsters and the wiles of strange women the highway of heroes and sages of warriors pirates and saints the workaday sea of carthaginian merchants and the pleasure lake of the roman caesars claims the veneration of every seaman as the historical home of that spirit of open defiance against the great waters of the earth which is the very soul of his calling issuing thence to the west and south as a youth leaves the shelter of his parental house this spirit found the way to the indies discovered the coasts of a new continent and traversed at last the immensity of the great pacific rich in groups of islands remote and mysterious like the constellations of the sky the first impulse of navigation took its visible form in that tideless basin freed from hidden shoals and treacherous currents as if in tender regard for the infancy of the art the steep shores of the Mediterranean favored the beginners in one of humanity's most daring enterprises and the enchanting inland sea of classic adventure has led mankind gently from headland to headland from bay to bay from island to island out into the promise of worldwide oceans beyond the pillars of Hercules chapter 39 the charm of the Mediterranean dwells in the unforgettable flavor of my early days and to this hour this sea upon which the Romans alone ruled without dispute has kept for me the fascination of youthful romance the very first christmas night i ever spent away from land was employed in running before a gulf of lions gale which made the old ship grown in every timber as she skipped before it over the short seas until we brought her to battered and out of breath under the lee of my orca where the smooth water was torn by fierce cats paws under a very stormy sky we or rather they for i had hardly had two glimpses of salt water in my life till then kept her standing off and on all that day while i listened for the first time with the curiosity of my tender years to the song of the wind in the ship's rigging the monotonous and vibrating note was destined to grow into the intimacy of the heart pass into blood and bone accompany the thoughts and acts of two full decades remain to haunt like a reproach the peace of the quiet fireside and enter into the very texture of respectable dreams dream safely under a roof of rafter and tiles the wind was fair but that day we ran no more the thing i will not call her a ship twice in the same half hour leaked she leaked fully generously overflowingly all over like a basket i took an enthusiastic part in the excitement caused by that last infirmity of noble ships without concerning myself much with the why or the wherefor the surmise of my mature years is that bored by her interminable life the venerable antiquity was simply yawning with and we at every scene but at the time i did not know i knew generally very little and least of all what i was doing in that galea i remember that exactly as in the comedy of moldier my uncle asked the precise question in the very words not of my confidential valet however but across great distances of land in a letter whose mocking but indulgent turn ill concealed his almost paternal anxiety i fancy i tried to convey to him my utterly unfounded impression that the west indies awaited my coming i had to go there it was a sort of mystic conviction something in the nature of a call but it was difficult to state intelligibly the grounds of this belief to that man of rigorous logic if of infinite charity the truth must have been that all unversed in the arts of the wily greek the deceiver of gods the lover of strange women the evoker of bloodthirsty shades i yet longed for the beginning of my own obscure odyssey which as was proper for a modern should unroll its wonders and terrors beyond the pillars of hercules the disdainful ocean did not open wide to swallow up my audacity though the ship the ridiculous and ancient galare of my folly the old weary disenchanted sugar wagon seemed extremely disposed to open out and swallow up as much salt water as she could this if less grandiose would have been as final a catastrophe but no catastrophe occurred i lived to watch on a strange shore a black and youthful nosica with a joyous train of attendant maidens carrying baskets of linen to a clear stream overhung by the heads of slender palm trees the vivid colors of their draped ramo and the gold of their earrings invested with a barbaric and regal magnificence their figures stepping out freely in a shower of broken sunshine the whiteness of their teeth was still more dazzling than the splendor of jewels at their ears the shaded side of the ravine gleamed with their smiles they were as unabashed as so many princesses but alas not one of them was the daughter of a jet black sovereign such was my abominable luck in being born by the mere haired spread of 25 centuries too late into a world where kings have been growing scarce with scandalous rapidity while the few who remain have adopted the uninteresting manners and customs of simple millionaires obviously it was a vain hope in 187 to see the ladies of a royal household walk in checkered shunstein with baskets of linen on their heads to the banks of a clear stream overhung by the starry fronds of palm trees it was a vain hope if i did not ask myself whether limited by such discouraging impossibilities life were still worth living it was only because i had then before me several other pressing questions some of which have remained unanswered to this day the resonant laughing voices of these gorgeous maidens scared away the multitude of hummingbirds whose delicate wings wreathed with the mist of their vibration the tops of flowering bushes no they were not princesses their unrestrained laughter filling the hot fern clad ravine had a soulless limpidity as of wild inhuman dwellers in tropical woodlands following the example of certain prudent travelers i withdrew unseen and returned not much wiser to the Mediterranean the sea of classic adventurers end of chapter 39