cages of animals in a circus. At every door you see a woman.
Some lean lazily against the side-posts, humming to themselves
or calling to the passer-by in a raucous voice, and some
listlessly read. They are French. Italian, Spanish,
Japanese, coloured; some are fat and some are thin; and under
the thick paint on their faces, the heavy smears on their
eyebrows, and the scarlet of their lips, you see the lines of
age and the scars of dissipation. Some wear black shifts and
flesh-coloured stockings; some with curly hair, dyed yellow,
are dressed like little girls in short muslin frocks.
Through the open door you see a red-tiled floor, a large wooden bed,
and on a deal table a ewer and a basin. A motley crowd
saunters along the streets -- Lascars off a P. and O., blond
Northmen from a Swedish barque, Japanese from a man-of-war,
English sailors, Spaniards, pleasant-looking fellows from a
French cruiser, negroes off an American tramp. By day it is
merely sordid, but at night, lit only by the lamps in the
little huts, the street has a sinister beauty. The hideous
lust that pervades the air is oppressive and horrible, and yet
there is something mysterious in the sight which haunts and
troubles you. You feel I know not what primitive force which
repels and yet fascinates you. Here all the decencies of
civilisation are swept away, and you feel that men are face to
face with a sombre reality. There is an atmosphere that is at
once intense and tragic.

In the bar in which Strickland and Nichols sat a mechanical
piano was loudly grinding out dance music. Round the room
people were sitting at table, here half a dozen sailors
uproariously drunk, there a group of soldiers; and in the
middle, crowded together, couples were dancing. Bearded
sailors with brown faces and large horny hands clasped their
partners in a tight embrace. The women wore nothing but a shift.
Now and then two sailors would get up and dance together.
The noise was deafening. People were singing, shouting,
laughing; and when a man gave a long kiss to the
girl sitting on his knees, cat-calls from the English sailors
increased the din. The air was heavy with the dust beaten up
by the heavy boots of the men, and gray with smoke. It was
very hot. Behind the bar was seated a woman nursing her baby.
The waiter, an undersized youth with a flat, spotty face,
hurried to and fro carrying a tray laden with glasses of beer.

In a little while Tough Bill, ac