68 STRAY -AW AYS 



they were like supers in some grimy pantomime, 

 their bright frippery was hateful in the rain, their 

 eyes had the cold Eastern lore, the oceultness nur- 

 tured in a separate life, on meditations for ever 

 untranslatable. 



The side of the steamer was like a black wall, the 

 gangway steep and shelterless. Wliy should gang- 

 ways be shelterless ? Why should anything in these 

 concentrated, costly efforts of civilisation be uncom- 

 fortable and rough ? The decks were very wet. A 

 wind from the dim and ruffled river bullied the little 

 curtains that draped the entrances to the deck cabins ; 

 down in the saloon was all the painting, the gilding, 

 the upholstery that mask the inexorable exigencies 

 of ship life. The next century will surely be sorry 

 for us, and talk about survival of the fittest, when 

 they contemplate our ideas of ocean travelling at its 

 best; the draughts, the awkward staircases, the 

 depressing utility that lurks, iron-handed, in the 

 velvets, the cramped affectation of reckless luxury, 

 the irrepressible sense of making the best of a bad 

 business. A ship is, indeed, a primitive thing for 

 this age of history, with its paltry brag against the 

 elements, its gi-oaning thraldom to them; ironclad 

 or ocean greyhound is but a brilliant makeshift, a 

 vain thing to save a man, and an adept at making 

 him miserable. 



A long brown Lascar went past under soaked 

 awnings; he trod deftly, he swung his legs forward, 

 as a tiger's hind-legs swing, with strange inertness 

 of the shoulders, with feline litheness about the 

 muscles of the back. He was strikingly picturesque, 

 inimitably Eastern; but none the less the desire for 

 foreign lands was fizzling to its conclusion, and 

 giving place to a self-congratulation that was worth 

 many desires. The shore bell clanged a note of 



