THE NIGCER OF THE NARCISSUS.

Waikato Argus, Volume III, Issue 202, 28 October 1897, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE NIGCER OF THE NARCISSUS.

Mi: Jcskpu Coxt.U), the sea captain who li s lib -> i ned within the past couple of ye.is into a bri liatit and powerful novelist, begin.*, hi .he August New Review, a story entitled "The nigger of the Narcissus." As its title implies, the new loniaac deals with the i-ea. .So far its action rather drags; indeed, it can scarcely be siidtomove at all. On the other hand, the wiit.ing is wonderfully strong. It piss scs tic fascination that always accompanies grisp and intensity. Then the char,.etc; drawing is at once vivid and humorous. Take, n r example. the following portrait of one of a company of seamen newly shipped at Bombay : "Another new hand a man with shifty eyes and a yellow hatchet face, who had been listening optn-mouthed in the shadow of the midship locker — observed in a squeaky voice: " Well, it's a 'omeward trip, anyhow. Bad or good. I can do it hall on my 'ed—s'long a- 1 get 'mini. Ami I can look after my rights ! 1 will show 'em V All tic heads turned to war.ls him. Only the ordinary sea man and the cat took no not : c2. Ho stood with arms akimbo, a little fellow with white eyelashes, lie 'ooked as if ho had known all the degridatiousand all the furies. He looked as if he had been cuffed, kicked, and rolled in the mud ; he looked as if he had been -cia ched, spat upon, pelted with unmentionab'e filth . . and he smiled

with a senee of security at the faces around. His ears were bending down under the weight of his battered hard hat. Tic torn tails of Ins black coat ll ipped in fringes about the calves of his legs. He unbuttoned the only two buttons that remained, and everyone saw that he had no shirt under it. It was hisdcs'i'Ved misfortune that those rags which nobody could possibly be supp:s,d to own looked on Lira as if they had been stolen. His neck was long and thin ; his eyelids ware red ; rare hairs hung about his jaws; his should rs were peaked and dropped like the broken wings of a bird ; all his left side was caked with mud, which -bowed that he had lately slept in a wet. ditch. He had saved his inefficient carcase from violent destruction by running away from an American ship where, in a moment of forgetful folly, he hail oared to engage himself ; and he had knocked about for a fortnight ashore in the native quarter, cadging for drinks, staivinjr, sleeping on rubbish heaps. wandering in sunshine, a startling visitor from a world of night-mires. He stood repulsive and sniilii g in the sudden silence. This clem white forecastlo was refuge ; the place wherehjcould bj lazy ; where he could willow, aud lie. and eat and cur.-e the f>od lie ate ; whore he could display hist dents for shirking work for cheating, for cadging; whore he could find surely so-neone le wheedle and someone to bully-—.and where he would be [laid for doing all this. They all knew him. N (hi re a spot on eaith where such a man is unknown, an ominous survival testifying to tin: eternal fitness of lies and impudence r A tacit urn long armed shellback, with hooked lingers, who had been lying on his back smoking, turned in his tied to examine him dispassionately, then, over his head, sent a long jet of clear saliva towards the door. Til iy all kn w him! He was the man that cannot steer, tfiat cannot splice, that dodges the work on dark nights: that aloft, holds on frantically with both arms and legs, and sxeari at the wind, the sleet, the darkness ; the man who curses the sea while others work, 'I he man who is the last out and the first ill when all ha. (Is are called. Tie; man who can't do most things and won't do the rest. The pet of philanthropists and self-seeking landlubccrs. The sympathetic and des> rving creature that knows all about his rights, but knows nothing of courage, oi' endurance, and :if the unexpressed faith, of tin; unspoken loyalty that knits togethsr s ship's company. The independent offspring of the ignoble freedom of tin' slums full of disdain and hate for the austere fervilude of the sea,"