cont. -
Who's that grunting? You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no--I didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with white-lead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steam-pipes--I tell you. I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook. There was surface-truth enough in these things to save a wiser man. And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity--and he had filed teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. He was useful because he had been instructed; and what he knew was this--that should the water in that transparent thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance. So he sweated and fired up and watched the glass fear- fully (with an impromptu charm, made of rags, tied to his arm, and a piece of polished bone, as big as a watch, stuck flatways through his lower lip), while the wooded banks slipped past us slowly, the short noise was left behind, the interminable miles of silence--and we crept on, towards Kurtz. But the snags were thick, the water was treacherous and shallow, the boiler seemed indeed to have a sulky devil in it, and thus neither that fire man nor I had any time to peer into our creepy thoughts.

muso wrote on Mar 9^th, 2011 at 9:38am:



Thank you, I think so, too.

Very true. But what about the Musselmen?

Yallah yallah yallah.

Soren wrote on Mar 9^th, 2011 at 12:09pm:

I think it is Kaiser Wilhelm's legacy... And you'd be describing northern Germans more than southern Germans and Austrians.

Soren wrote on Mar 9^th, 2011 at 12:09pm:

With at least one exception, of course, with Cromwell's New Model Army... And what he did with it in Ireland.

on topic

Karnal wrote on Mar 11^th, 2011 at 2:12am:



You Muslim buggers are still stuck in the dark ages of the enslavement of mind and spirit. You treat anyone turning his mind or heart away from Islam as a slave to be hunted down and killed.  Just because you can hold a tea cup or cricket bat does not mean you are not savages.  Your metaphysic explains your contempt for each other. Tea and cricket is a cover up knowingly deployed.

muso wrote on Mar 11^th, 2011 at 3:23pm:



Sheesh .. is that condition in ANY way related to penis envy in any way? Just asking only coz I was accused of having it a few times yesterday