Influence of Africa on Europeans

Literary Analysis – Essay Planning

Step 1 – essay plan

Thesis
Visit in Africa is a turning point of life for most of the Europeans included in Heart of Darkness.
Claim #1		Claim #2		Claim #3
They go mad.		They die.		They make profound reflections about themselves and human nature.
Evidence #1	Evidence #2	Evidence #1	Evidence #2	Evidence #1	Evidence #2
“Once, I remember, we came upon a man–of–war anchored off the coast. There wasn’t even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long six–inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six–inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives—he called them enemies!—hidden out of sight somewhere.” Collins’ Classics  p. 15	“Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festive—not to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can’t say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle–aged negro, with a bullet–hole in the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be considered as a permanent improvement”. Collins’ Classics p. 23	“The other day I took up a man who hanged himself on the road. He was a Swede, too.’ ‘Hanged himself! Why, in God’s name?’ I cried. He kept on looking out watchfully. ‘Who knows? The sun too much for him, or the country perhaps.” Collin’s Classics p. 16	“Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn’t touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath: “‘The horror! The horror!’(...) “‘Mistah Kurtz—he dead.’” Collins’ Classics p.90	“It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you—you so remote from the night of first ages—could comprehend.” Collins Classics’ p. 44	No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don’t you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It’s really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one’s soul—than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield. Collins’ Classics p. 52

Step 2 – rough draft

Introduction:

√      Grab reader’s attention

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard stated that it is common process that one attributes his own negative features to the others.

√      Provide some literary background to your topic

Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”

√      Thesis One sentence, last sentence in introduction

Visit in Africa is a turning point of life for most of the Europeans included in Heart of Darkness.

Body Paragraph #1:

√      Topic sentence for claim #1 in support of thesis

In many cases, they go mad there.

√      Support #1(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

Marlow witnessed a crew of man-of-war shooting blindly at the bushes.

√      Explain how support #1 relates to claim #1

No sane person would ever shoot at bush. It was a sign of paranoia.

√      Support #2(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

“Once a white man in an unbuttoned uniform, camping on the path with an armed escort of lank Zanzibaris, very hospitable and festive—not to say drunk. Was looking after the upkeep of the road, he declared. Can’t say I saw any road or any upkeep(...)” p.23 (Collins’ Classics)

√      Explain how support #2 relates to claim#1

This guy was upkeeping the road that didn’t exist, which certainly not classified as a logical action.

√      If you haven’t already, explain how claim #1 relates to thesis,  and transition to next claim #2

Africa would permanently rip their psychic to shreds. They won’t be able to return to normal life afterwards (same situation is pictured in “Deer Hunter”). But some people experienced worse fate...

Body Paragraph #2

√      Topic sentence for claim #2 in support of thesis

Either for physicall or for mental reasons lots of people lost their lives to africa.

√      Support #1(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

A Swede hung himself in a jungle.

√      Explain how support #1 relates to claim #2

We could only speculate on the reasons, however commiting suicide in middle of a jungle is more than possibly the sign of being overpowered by the nature.

√      Support #2(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

“‘Mistah Kurtz—he dead.’” p. 12 (Collins’ Classics)

√      Explain how support #2 relates to claim#2

Not only Kurtz owes his fatal illness to Africa, living there made hell of his life. It was clearly visible in his last words “the horror! the horror!”

√      If you haven’t already, explain how claim #2 relates to thesis,  and transition to next claim #3

But there are still some people who managed to survive their journey to Africa.

Body Paragraph #3

√      Topic sentence for claim #3 in support of thesis

They faced opportunity to make profound reflections about themselves and human nature.

√      Support #1(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

“It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you—you so remote from the night of first ages—could comprehend.” Collins’ Classics p. 44

√      Explain how support #1 relates to claim #3

Thoughts about human nature.

√      Support #2(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don’t you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It’s really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one’s soul—than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield. Collins’ Classics p. 52

√      Explain how support #2 relates to claim#3

Reflections about man’s physical limitations.

√      If you haven’t already, explain how claim #3 relates to thesis,  and transition to conclusion

Stay in the savage Africa is so strong, that reflections come in the form of imperative. It is impossible for a man not to ask himself existential questions in such a conditions.

Conclusion

√      Restate thesis & claims using NEW words

The black land delivered Europeans a variety of lifetime experiences. Despite tragic consequences in most cases, those who survived and managed to remain mentally sane, were honoured to get a grip of real human nature.

√      Final thoughts for reader (relation to real world or what readers should learn from the work, etc.)

By setting action in such harsh conditions as Africa, Conrad aims at exposing human nature with all their weaknesses. This is one of the features of Heart of Darkness as a naturalistic book.

Women in Heart of Darkness

Literary Analysis – Essay Planning

Step 1 – essay plan

Thesis
Women are portrayed as an involuntary remedy for depravation of the world.
Claim #1		Claim #2		Claim #3
Women are considered not to be engaged in the “real life”.		Harsh world was only accessible for the men.		Innocence connected with naivity are the most appreciated female features in Heart of Darkness.
Evidence #1	Evidence #2	Evidence #1	Evidence #2	Evidence #1	Evidence #2
So I worried them. The men said ‘My dear fellow,’ and did nothing. Then—would you believe it?—I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the women to work—to get a job. Heavens! Well, you see, the notion drove me. I had an aunt, a dear enthusiastic soul. Collins’ Classics p. 8	I have been risking my life every day for the last fortnight to keep her out of the house. She got in one day and kicked up a row about those miserable rags I picked up in the storeroom to mend my clothes with. I wasn’t decent Collins’ Classics p. 79	“‘The horror! The horror!’ Collins’ Classics p. 90	“The mind of man is capable of anything — because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage — who can tell? — but truth — truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder — the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff — with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags — rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief.” Collins’ Classics p. 44	“‘Yes, I know,’ I said with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was in her, before that great and saving illusion that shone with an unearthly glow in the darkness, in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have defended her—from which I could not even defend myself. Collins’ Classics p.  98	Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. Collins’ Classics p. 29

Step 2 – rough draft

Introduction:

√      Grab reader’s attention

XIXth century may appear today as a time of great underappreciation of women. Despite they did not even try then to replace man, the significance of them could not be ommited

√      Provide some literary background to your topic

Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”

√      Thesis One sentence, last sentence in introduction

Women are portrayed as an essential remedy for depravation of the world.

Body Paragraph #1:

√      Topic sentence for claim #1 in support of thesis

Women are considered not to be engaged in the “real life”.

√      Support #1(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

“So I worried them. The men said ‘My dear fellow,’ and did nothing. Then—would you believe it?—I tried the women. I, Charlie Marlow, set the women to work—to get a job. Heavens! Well, you see, the notion drove me. I had an aunt, a dear enthusiastic soul.” (Collins’ Classics p. 8)

√      Explain how support #1 relates to claim #1

It shows how absurd for Marlow was the idea of asking woman for a help.

√      Support #2(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

“I have been risking my life every day for the last fortnight to keep her out of the house. She got in one day and kicked up a row about those miserable rags I picked up in the storeroom to mend my clothes with. I wasn’t decent.” (Collins’ Classics p. 79)

√      Explain how support #2 relates to claim#1

It was natural for harlequin, that the black mistress used to kick up a fuss as a result of things of no importance.

√      If you haven’t already, explain how claim #1 relates to thesis,  and transition to next claim #2

Given those quotes we get the image of how the women were treated in the society

Body Paragraph #2

√      Topic sentence for claim #2 in support of thesis

Harsh world is accessible only for the men.

√      Support #1(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

“‘The horror! The horror!’ (Collins’ Classics p. 90)

√      Explain how support #1 relates to claim #2

Last word’s of Kurtz clearly reflect his mental state while dying. It is caused by lot of traumatic experiences.

√      Support #2(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

“The mind of man is capable of anything — because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage — who can tell? — but truth — truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder — the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own true stuff — with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won't do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags — rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief.” (Collins’ Classics p. 44)

√      Explain how support #2 relates to claim#2

It is just a piece of male’s reflection. In HoD the reader gets the impression, that the women do not have any wider look on, for example, society.

√      If you haven’t already, explain how claim #2 relates to thesis,  and transition to next claim #3

However, between the lines we could see how important the women are.

Body Paragraph #3

√      Topic sentence for claim #3 in support of thesis

Innocence connected with naivity are the most appreciated female features in Heart of Darkness.

√      Support #1(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

“‘Yes, I know,’ I said with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was in her, before that great and saving illusion that shone with an unearthly glow in the darkness, in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have defended her—from which I could not even defend myself.” (Collins’ Classics p. 98)

√      Explain how support #1 relates to claim #3

It reveals, how important the ilusions delivered by women are for Marlow. It also indicates, that this naive behaviour (faith in love of Kurtz in this case) is natural for women. That is why he decided to lie to her, even though he had stated before that he detests lying.

√      Support #2(This is a quote or paraphrase)…Quotes can’t stand alone, and they MUST have page numbers!!

“Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch.” (Collins’ Classics p. 29)

√      Explain how support #2 relates to claim#3

The woman on the painting could be treated symbolically, as a representant of all women. On one hand the band which covers eyes shows naivety, on the other torch in hand indicates that there’s a sort of power brought by women.

√      If you haven’t already, explain how claim #3 relates to thesis,  and transition to conclusion

It introduces women’s features, the book praises.

Conclusion

√      Restate thesis & claims using NEW words

In Heart of Darkness women are the keepers of the values men of the ferocius world frantically need. In spite of feeling superior to women, main characters (Marlow, Kurtz) are perfectly aware of their crucial role to life – bringing hope and keeping their minds off “real” matters.

√      Final thoughts for reader (relation to real world or what readers should learn from the work, etc.)

Such a view is fairly radical and would face strong criticism nowadays. On the other hand, we have to keep in mind, that showing women in such a way was rather beneficial for them comparing to common contemporary views.

Creative writing task

Original text:

Towards the evening of the second day we judged ourselves about eight miles from Kurtz’s station. I wanted to push on; but the manager looked grave, and told me the navigation up there was so dangerous that it would be advisable, the sun being very low already, to wait where we were till next morning. Moreover, he pointed out that if the warning to approach cautiously were to be followed, we must approach in daylight—not at dusk or in the dark. This was sensible enough. Eight miles meant nearly three hours’ steaming for us, and I could also see suspicious ripples at the upper end of the reach. Nevertheless, I was annoyed beyond expression at the delay, and most unreasonably, too, since one night more could not matter much after so many months. As we had plenty of wood, and caution was the word, I brought up in the middle of the stream. The reach was narrow, straight, with high sides like a railway cutting. The dusk came gliding into it long before the sun had set. The current ran smooth and swift, but a dumb immobility sat on the banks. The living trees, lashed together by the creepers and every living bush of the undergrowth, might have been changed into stone, even to the slenderest twig, to the lightest leaf. It was not sleep—it seemed unnatural, like a state of trance. Not the faintest sound of any kind could be heard. You looked on amazed, and began to suspect yourself of being deaf—then the night came suddenly, and struck you blind as well. About three in the morning some large fish leaped, and the loud splash made me jump as though a gun had been fired. When the sun rose there was a white fog, very warm and clammy, and more blinding than the night. It did not shift or drive; it was just there, standing all round you like something solid. At eight or nine, perhaps, it lifted as a shutter lifts. We had a glimpse of the towering multitude of trees, of the immense matted jungle, with the blazing little ball of the sun hanging over it—all perfectly still—and then the white shutter came down again, smoothly, as if sliding in greased grooves. I ordered the chain, which we had begun to heave in, to be paid out again. Before it stopped running with a muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry, as of infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. It ceased. A complaining clamour, modulated in savage discords, filled our ears. The sheer unexpectedness of it made my hair stir under my cap. I don’t know how it struck the others: to me it seemed as though the mist itself had screamed, so suddenly, and apparently from all sides at once, did this tumultuous and mournful uproar arise. It culminated in a hurried outbreak of almost intolerably excessive shrieking, which stopped short, leaving us stiffened in a variety of silly attitudes, and obstinately listening to the nearly as appalling and excessive silence. ‘Good God! What is the meaning—’ stammered at my elbow one of the pilgrims—a little fat man, with sandy hair and red whiskers, who wore sidespring boots, and pink pyjamas tucked into his socks. Two others remained open–mouthed a while minute, then dashed into the little cabin, to rush out incontinently and stand darting scared glances, with Winchesters at ‘ready’ in their hands. What we could see was just the steamer we were on, her outlines blurred as though she had been on the point of dissolving, and a misty strip of water, perhaps two feet broad, around her—and that was all. The rest of the world was nowhere, as far as our eyes and ears were concerned. Just nowhere. Gone, disappeared; swept off without leaving a whisper or a shadow behind.

“I went forward, and ordered the chain to be hauled in short, so as to be ready to trip the anchor and move the steamboat at once if necessary. ‘Will they attack?’ whispered an awed voice. ‘We will be all butchered in this fog,’ murmured another. The faces twitched with the strain, the hands trembled slightly, the eyes forgot to wink. It was very curious to see the contrast of expressions of the white men and of the black fellows of our crew, who were as much strangers to that part of the river as we, though their homes were only eight hundred miles away. The whites, of course greatly discomposed, had besides a curious look of being painfully shocked by such an outrageous row. The others had an alert, naturally interested expression; but their faces were essentially quiet, even those of the one or two who grinned as they hauled at the chain. Several exchanged short, grunting phrases, which seemed to settle the matter to their satisfaction. Their headman, a young, broad–chested black, severely draped in dark–blue fringed cloths, with fierce nostrils and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets, stood near me. ‘Aha!’ I said, just for good fellowship’s sake. ‘Catch ’im,’ he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth—‘catch ’im. Give ’im to us.’ ‘To you, eh?’ I asked; ‘what would you do with them?’ ‘Eat ’im!’ he said curtly, and, leaning his elbow on the rail, looked out into the fog in a dignified and profoundly pensive attitude. I would no doubt have been properly horrified, had it not occurred to me that he and his chaps must be very hungry: that they must have been growing increasingly hungry for at least this month past. They had been engaged for six months (I don’t think a single one of them had any clear idea of time, as we at the end of countless ages have. They still belonged to the beginnings of time—had no inherited experience to teach them as it were), and of course, as long as there was a piece of paper written over in accordance with some farcical law or other made down the river, it didn’t enter anybody’s head to trouble how they would live. Certainly they had brought with them some rotten hippo–meat, which couldn’t have lasted very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn’t, in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity of it overboard. It looked like a high–handed proceeding; but it was really a case of legitimate self–defence. You can’t breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence. Besides that, they had given them every week three pieces of brass wire, each about nine inches long; and the theory was they were to buy their provisions with that currency in riverside villages. You can see how THAT worked. There were either no villages, or the people were hostile, or the director, who like the rest of us fed out of tins, with an occasional old he–goat thrown in, didn’t want to stop the steamer for some more or less recondite reason. So, unless they swallowed the wire itself, or made loops of it to snare the fishes with, I don’t see what good their extravagant salary could be to them. I must say it was paid with a regularity worthy of a large and honourable trading company. For the rest, the only thing to eat—though it didn’t look eatable in the least—I saw in their possession was a few lumps of some stuff like half–cooked dough, of a dirty lavender colour, they kept wrapped in leaves, and now and then swallowed a piece of, but so small that it seemed done more for the looks of the thing than for any serious purpose of sustenance. Why in the name of all the gnawing devils of hunger they didn’t go for us—they were thirty to five—and have a good tuck–in for once, amazes me now when I think of it. They were big powerful men, with not much capacity to weigh the consequences, with courage, with strength, even yet, though their skins were no longer glossy and their muscles no longer hard. And I saw that something restraining, one of those human secrets that baffle probability, had come into play there. I looked at them with a swift quickening of interest—not because it occurred to me I might be eaten by them before very long, though I own to you that just then I perceived—in a new light, as it were—how unwholesome the pilgrims looked, and I hoped, yes, I positively hoped, that my aspect was not so—what shall I say?—so—unappetizing: a touch of fantastic vanity which fitted well with the dream–sensation that pervaded all my days at that time. Perhaps I had a little fever, too. One can’t live with one’s finger everlastingly on one’s pulse. I had often ‘a little fever,’ or a little touch of other things—the playful paw–strokes of the wilderness, the preliminary trifling before the more serious onslaught which came in due course. Yes; I looked at them as you would on any human being, with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses, when brought to the test of an inexorable physical necessity. Restraint! What possible restraint? Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear—or some kind of primitive honour? No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze. Don’t you know the devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating torment, its black thoughts, its sombre and brooding ferocity? Well, I do. It takes a man all his inborn strength to fight hunger properly. It’s really easier to face bereavement, dishonour, and the perdition of one’s soul—than this kind of prolonged hunger. Sad, but true. And these chaps, too, had no earthly reason for any kind of scruple. Restraint! I would just as soon have expected restraint from a hyena prowling amongst the corpses of a battlefield. But there was the fact facing me—the fact dazzling, to be seen, like the foam on the depths of the sea, like a ripple on an unfathomable enigma, a mystery greater—when I thought of it—than the curious, inexplicable note of desperate grief in this savage clamour that had swept by us on the river–bank, behind the blind whiteness of the fog.

Creative writing

I woke up way earlier than usually. The sun hadn’t rosen yet. My stomach was rumbling. I looked around and suddenly got irritated by remembering where I am. I took a peek at other folks and realised that no one had waken up yet. I didn’t feel like sleeping, but eventually decided to go back to bed to forget about the hunger. I closed my eyes and slipped under the blanket. Several minutes had passed, before I realised that something is unusual. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but it was the feeling of extraordinarity that prevented me from falling asleep. I took notice, that no one was snoring. That moment I discovered this significant feature of the jungle – it is silent itself. I realised, that it was the first time I was able to reflect on that matter. Since than I was always accompanied by someone or affaired by mundane matters of various origins. This revelation took me aback and I lied stiffly in bed, contemplating the still of the night.

It came to me as a surprise, when I eventually woke up and everyone was wide awake. I dressed myself in a hurry, as we were to set off in a while. As I went on the upper-deck I felt a gentle presence of fresh air in my nostrils. It was quite a foggy day. I used to like such a weather, because it was really refreshing. Unfortunately, the pleasant feeling was instantly replaced by immense hunger. I asked the boss when we were going to get a meal, he replied that we were fairly close to our destination and we were going to eat there. By „the boss”, I meant Billy – the one of us, who spoke best english, which made him sort of middleman between blacks and whites. I had mixed feelings about this guy. On one hand, he always was on our side, doing his best to provide us decent life conditions, on the other it was pathetic to see his struggle to resemble the whites. With his long, dark-blue clothes,  trumpery all around the body and soft features he used to be called a girlie. However, everyone respected him. Personally, I was happy not to be the one to do monkey tricks in front of Europeans. When the word „food” rang in the air, a group of ours gathered nearby, in order to listen to my conversation with Billy. He said, that we have to be tough and assured, that we are going to get a loads of food in the port we were going to arrive that day. I was sincerely surprised, that no one kept moaning about being hungry. The discussion was suddenly interfered by a loud cry of the hippo. I looked at my fellows and saw that they have exactly the same in mind – at least something to eat. No one expected the noise, however did not bear any features of extraordinarity. The shriek was instantly followed  by the panic moans of the whites. You should have seen them. Their faces went red, one of them went on his knees and began to pray feverishly, the others pulled out their guns and aimed at random spots in the jungle. We were lucky that no one got hurt in that hilarious clutter. Only the captain managed to remain calm. One could see alert state on his face, however he seemed to be somehow irritated by behaviour of the others. Even though, it was his first cruise with us, everyone respected him. I noticed that he rarely talks to anyone from the crew, let alone in purpose of entertainment. He seemed to be a man of deeper reflection. I am not into that „thinking” stuff, but I had always appreciated people who tried to go beyond everyday’s life.

Billie approached him to ask about the hippo. They exchanged few words. At one point, the conversation was cut and captain started to ponder deeply about something. Billie waited for the response, but after few whiles shrugged his shoulders and turned back. Really weird guy, this captain chap.