Lord Jim | Page 6

of country
ships. They had now a horror of the home service, with its harder
conditions, severer view of duty, and the hazard of stormy oceans.
They were attuned to the eternal peace of Eastern sky and sea. They
loved short passages, good deck-chairs, large native crews, and the
distinction of being white. They shuddered at the thought of hard work,
and led precariously easy lives, always on the verge of dismissal,
always on the verge of engagement, serving Chinamen, Arabs,
half-castes--would have served the devil himself had he made it easy
enough. They talked everlastingly of turns of luck: how So-and-so got
charge of a boat on the coast of China--a soft thing; how this one had
an easy billet in Japan somewhere, and that one was doing well in the
Siamese navy; and in all they said--in their actions, in their looks, in
their persons--could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay, the
determination to lounge safely through existence.
To Jim that gossiping crowd, viewed as seamen, seemed at first more
unsubstantial than so many shadows. But at length he found a
fascination in the sight of those men, in their appearance of doing so
well on such a small allowance of danger and toil. In time, beside the
original disdain there grew up slowly another sentiment; and suddenly,
giving up the idea of going home, he took a berth as chief mate of the
Patna.
The Patna was a local steamer as old as the hills, lean like a greyhound,
and eaten up with rust worse than a condemned water-tank. She was
owned by a Chinaman, chartered by an Arab, and commanded by a sort
of renegade New South Wales German, very anxious to curse publicly
his native country, but who, apparently on the strength of Bismarck's
victorious policy, brutalised all those he was not afraid of, and wore a
'blood-and-iron' air,' combined with a purple nose and a red moustache.
After she had been painted outside and whitewashed inside, eight
hundred pilgrims (more or less) were driven on board of her as she lay

with steam up alongside a wooden jetty.
They streamed aboard over three gangways, they streamed in urged by
faith and the hope of paradise, they streamed in with a continuous
tramp and shuffle of bare feet, without a word, a murmur, or a look
back; and when clear of confining rails spread on all sides over the
deck, flowed forward and aft, overflowed down the yawning hatchways,
filled the inner recesses of the ship--like water filling a cistern, like
water flowing into crevices and crannies, like water rising silently even
with the rim. Eight hundred men and women with faith and hopes, with
affections and memories, they had collected there, coming from north
and south and from the outskirts of the East, after treading the jungle
paths, descending the rivers, coasting in praus along the shallows,
crossing in small canoes from island to island, passing through
suffering, meeting strange sights, beset by strange fears, upheld by one
desire. They came from solitary huts in the wilderness, from populous
campongs, from villages by the sea. At the call of an idea they had left
their forests, their clearings, the protection of their rulers, their
prosperity, their poverty, the surroundings of their youth and the graves
of their fathers. They came covered with dust, with sweat, with grime,
with rags--the strong men at the head of family parties, the lean old
men pressing forward without hope of return; young boys with fearless
eyes glancing curiously, shy little girls with tumbled long hair; the
timid women muffled up and clasping to their breasts, wrapped in loose
ends of soiled head-cloths, their sleeping babies, the unconscious
pilgrims of an exacting belief.
'Look at dese cattle,' said the German skipper to his new chief mate.
An Arab, the leader of that pious voyage, came last. He walked slowly
aboard, handsome and grave in his white gown and large turban. A
string of servants followed, loaded with his luggage; the Patna cast off
and backed away from the wharf.
She was headed between two small islets, crossed obliquely the
anchoring-ground of sailing-ships, swung through half a circle in the
shadow of a hill, then ranged close to a ledge of foaming reefs. The
Arab, standing up aft, recited aloud the prayer of travellers by sea. He

invoked the favour of the Most High upon that journey, implored His
blessing on men's toil and on the secret purposes of their hearts; the
steamer pounded in the dusk the calm water of the Strait; and far astern
of the pilgrim ship a screw-pile lighthouse, planted by unbelievers on a
treacherous shoal, seemed to wink at her its eye of flame, as if in
derision of her errand of faith.
She