83 



gates and which branches down between each vast 

 block past a pilot-engine butting refractory trucks 

 into their places on to the last block, [and] down 

 the branch, sniffing the guano-scented air and 

 detecting the old bones. The hartshorn flavour of 

 the guano becomes very strong, as I near the docks 

 where, across the Elba's decks, a huge vessel is 

 discharging her cargo of the brown dust, and where 

 huge vessels have been discharging that same cargo 

 for the last five months/ This was the walk he 

 took his young wife on the morrow of his return. 

 She had been used to the society of lawyers and 

 civil servants, moving in that circle which seems 

 to itself the pivot of the nation and is in truth only 

 ; ancl .l^eeming was to her the 

 nb of a na UK-Jess firm of engineers, 

 ;ous busir.ei^ as she now saw for 

 i savoury :a rroundings. But when 

 them within view of the river, 

 ght to her of tlie most novel beauty : 

 i-Tfing ship;; dressed out with flags, 

 she cried. 'What is it f or ? ' 

 (1 Eleeming. Her surprise was only 

 i pleasure. But perhaps, for what 

 ite fame, tfcsre is no life like that 

 ; who is a, gieat man in out of the 

 the docksidj oi on the desert island 

 ships, and H'Oiains quite unheard 

 en of London, And Fleeming had 



c 

 b 

 JIM 



