t because they are
always doing it. That first voyage to Port Duluth was a revelation to me
in several ways. I had my own private troubles you may be sure. I was as
green as grass. My hands blistered and my heart sickened many a time.
But I am glad to think I could see other things as well. To me it was
thrilling to look out across the oily blue glitter and see a hazy line
which was the Ivory Coast. There was the Slave Coast and the Gold
Coast--the words had a new significance now! And when I came up out of
that awful engine-room and saw the land close in, the eternal grey-green
line of mangrove swamp holding up the blazing vault of the sky, I forgot
my troubles. I said to myself in a whisper, 'This is what I came for.
This is the world!'

"I asked where we had anchored, seeing no sign of life ashore, and they
told me it was the Bar. We must wait for high water. Away ahead was the
bar buoy, a white blob on the water. I stood leaning against a stanchion
trying to sense the atmosphere of the place until the Second called me,
for there was something to do. There was always something to do in that
terrible old ship. I went down, and together we wrestled with the
dynamo-engine, a cheap contraption with a closed crank chamber full of
muddy oil which was supposed to splash into all the bearings, and
didn't. We needed a washer, a special sort of thing. The old one was
worn out. We needed screws, too, to fasten it with, small brass screws
with flat heads that sank in out of sight. When I asked where these were
coming from if we hadn't got them on the ship, the Second said with some
asperity, that it would be my job to make them on my anchor watch that
night. I was surprised at this and made some remark about getting them
from ashore, and it so tickled the poor over-worked Second that he stood
up suddenly, spun round towards the reversing engine and broke into
peals of hysterical laughter. I shall never forget the sight of him as
he stood there in his sodden, filthy singlet and dungarees, his arms
knotted and burned and bruised, his common little face twisted into an
expression of super-human scorn. For a single moment he was sublime,
lifted out of himself, with the mere effort of pouring contempt upon my
ignorance. He tried to put it into words, and sputtered. He looked as
though in a trance and some stormy spirit was struggling within him. The
sweat ran off us in streams as we stood there in the light of a couple
of slush-lamps