AFRICAN CAMP FIRES 



even the grace to pick out the surface of the harbour 

 in the jolly dancing staccato that goes far to lend 

 attraction to a genuinely earnest rainstorm. 



Down the long quai splashed cabs and omnibuses, 

 their drivers glistening in wet capes, to discharge 

 under the open shed at the end various hasty indi- 

 viduals who marshalled long lines of porters with 

 astonishing impedimenta and drove them up the 

 gangplank. A half-dozen roughs lounged aimlessly. 

 A little bent old woman with a shawl over her head 

 searched here and there. Occasionally she would 

 find a twisted splinter of wood torn from the piles 

 by a hawser, or gouged from the planking by heavy 

 freight, or kicked from the floor by the hoofs of horses. 

 This she deposited carefully in a small covered 

 market basket. She was entirely intent on this 

 minute and rather pathetic task, quite unattending 

 the greatness ^of the ship, or the many people the 

 great hulk swallowed or spat forth. 



Near us against the rail leaned a dark-haired 

 young Englishman whom later every man on that 

 many-nationed ship came to recognize and to avoid 

 as an insufferable bore. Now, however, the angel 

 of good inspiration stooped to him. He tossed a 

 copper two-sou piece down to the bent old woman. 

 She heard the clink of the fall, and looked up bewil- 

 dered. One of the waterside roughs slouched for- 



12 



