electric light, turns away with a movement of great
weariness, stumbles over the threshold of his cabin,
and throws himself on his couch for thirty minutes
of oblivion. The mate stands by the gangway-planks,
and sees the people come on board. Up and down
by the engines, like a caged beast, the patient engineer
walks, his face livid under the white glare. There are
still two hours to the dawn when the captain wakes,
the hawsers are flung on board, and the steamer takes
her relentless way into the night.
All next day we thread the winding ways of the
Delta, the waters laden with the tide, now level with
the plains. For scores of miles neither ridge nor
hillock breaks the level monotony. The rice-fields
stretch beyond the fringe of the river to the
farthest horizon. But towards evening there' is’ a
great change. The water-ways are lined with avenues
of drooping forest, and the tropical wilderness spreads
far into the distance. We pass from the broad highway
into narrow, sinuous creeks"; sluggish, like gorged
pythons. The steamer, with her flats in tow, fills all
the available water space, and the tarred flanks of her
flats hustle and rasp against the drooping branches of
the trees.- Ahead, the sun flares in red gold, and the
dark tracery of the forest is cut against it. Then the
night falls swiftly, the'stars come forth in myriads, and
the searchlight sends her flame before the ship. Once
again all the world becomes unreal. Every shadow
deepens, every reflection is intensified. The face of
the waters is like a mirror, without a soul; yet it reflects
480
A BOAT-LOAD OF POTTERY