We had no arms, as we had been told that the road was perfectly safe, and the only weapons of defence which we possessed were our parasols, if I except a clasp-knife, which I instantly drew out of my pocket and opened, fully determined to sell my life as dearly as possible.
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From Panait Istrati’s excellent book The Confession Of A Loser, also published as Russia Unveiled: 1927 – 1930.
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I remember a friend of mine, buying a couple of cheeses at Liverpool. Splendid cheeses they were, ripe and mellow, and with a two hundred horse-power scent about them that might have been warranted to carry three miles, and knock a man over at two hundred yards.
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In the mean time it began to rain; and, settling my accounts with the señora, thanking her for her kindness, leaving an order to have some bread baked for the next day, and taking with me an umbrella and a blue bag, contents unknown, belonging to Mr. Catherwood, which he had particularly requested me to bring, I set out on my return.
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I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch—hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating scourge I know—and, before I had glanced half down the list of “premonitory symptoms,” it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.
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From a book called “The Negro in Tennessee, 1790-1865” by Caleb Perry Patterson.
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I believe no one attempts to praise the climate of New England. The very low average of health there, the prevalence of consumption and of decay of the teeth, are evidences of an unwholesome climate which I believe are universally received as such.
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I can hardly consider myself presumptuous in believing that few travellers who have made an ascent of the Paraná for the first time have done so with a more agreeable impression of its beauty than I experienced. The only drawback connected with this pleasure is the consciousness of being unable fully to describe it. My readers will, however, be indulgent enough to give me credit for an effort to do my best.
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The usual method employed was what is technically known as “tracking.” That is, a strong rope, about the thickness of a clothes-line, was tied to the gunwale of the boat just aft of the bow. To the shore end of this broad leather straps were attached. With these across their shoulders, three of the party tugged away along the rocky bank, while number four of our crew, with an oar lashed in the stern, steered a devious course among the rocks and shallows of the river.
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True, I had seen photographs of it; yes, and I had seen photographs of the Cañon of the Yellowstone, and of the Nevada Falls, and of Niagara, just as I have seen paste diamonds; I knew their shapes, and that is all I ever gathered from their portraits.
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We embarked on a little steamboat which drew twelve inches of water, and whose single wide paddle-wheel was at the stern, and extended the whole width of the hull. A succession of dams made the river navigable at that season of low water, and at each dam we were let down by a lock to a lower level. At the high stage of water dams and locks are all buried deep beneath the surface, and larger steamboats go careering over them.
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This is what Joseph Conrad wrote in the preface of his exceptional novel The Nigger Of The “Narcissus”.
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