rthly now--nothing but black
shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish
gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality
of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar
food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl
away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air--and nearly as
thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of the eyes under the trees.
Then, glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined
at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the
eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant,
a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out
slowly. The man seemed young--almost a boy--but you know with them it's
hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good
Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly
on it and held--there was no other movement and no other glance. He had
tied a bit of white worsted round his neck--Why? Where did he get it?
Was it a badge--an ornament--a charm--a propitiatory act? Was there any
idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck,
this bit of white thread from beyond the seas.

"Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legs
drawn up. One, with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing,
in an intolerable and appalling manner: his brother phantom rested its
forehead, as if overcome with a great weariness; and all about others
were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture
of a massacre or a pestilence. While I stood horror-struck, one of these
creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on all-fours towards
the river to drink. He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the
sunlight, crossing his shins in front of him, and after a time let his
woolly head fall on his breastbone.

"I didn't want any more loitering in the shade, and I made haste towards
the station. When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an
unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for
a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light
alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No
hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a
big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear.

"I shook hands