Just escaped from the prison-house of Russia, I had reached Marseilles. The whole city, the bay, and the surrounding hills, bright with villas and farms, glittered in sunshine. So did the spidery bridge that swings the ferry across the Old Harbour's mouth. Even the fortifications looked quite amiable under such a sky. Booming sirens sounded the approach of great liners, moving slowly to their appointed docks. Little steamers hurried from point to point along the shores with crowded decks, and the lighthouses stood white against the Mediterranean blue.
The streets were thronged with busy people. The shops and cafés were thronged. At all the bathing places along the bay crowds of men, women, and children were plunging with joy into the cool, transparent water. The walls and kiosks were covered with gay advertisements of balls, concerts, theatres, and open air music-halls. Flaunting and flirting to and fro, women recalled what pleasure was. Electric trams went clanging down the lines. Motors hooted as they set off for tours in the Alps. Little carriages, with many-coloured hoods, loitered temptingly beside tine pavements. The stalls along the quay shone with every variety of gleaming fish, and every produce of the kindly earth. The sun went smiling through the air; the sea smiled in answer. And over all, high upon her rocky hill, watched the great image of Notre Dame de la Garde.
"This is civilisation! This is liberty!" cried a Frenchman, who had joined our ship in Turkey, and was now seated beside me, enjoying the return to security, peace, and the comfort of his own language.
Yes; it was civilisation, and it was liberty. Has not the name of Marseilles breathed the very spirit of liberty all over the world? And yet his words recalled to me another scene, and the remark of another native of Marseilles.
We were steaming slowly along the West Coast of Africa, landing cargo at point after point, or calling for it as required. Day by day we wallowed through the oily water, under a misty sun, that did not roast, but boiled. Day by day we watched the low-lying shore—the unvarying line of white beach, almost as white as the foam which dashed against it; and beyond the beach, the long black line of unbroken forest. Nothing was to be seen but those parallel lines of white beach and black forest, stretching both ways to the horizon. At dawn they were partly concealed by serpentining ghosts of mist that slowly vanished under the increasing heat; and at sunset the mists stole silently over them again. But all day and all night the sickly stench of vegetation, putrefying in the steam of those forests from age to age, pervaded the ship as with the breath of plague.
One morning the scream of our whistle and the bang of our little signal-gun, followed by the prolonged rattle of the anchor-chain running through the hawse-pipe, showed that we had reached some point of call. The ship lay about half a mile off shore, and one could see black figures running about the beach and pushing off a big black boat. The spray shot high in the air as the bow dived through the surf, and soon we could hear the hiss and gasp of the rowers as they drew near. They were naked negroes, shining with oil and sweat. Standing up in the boat, with face to bow, they plunged their paddles perpendicularly into the water with a hiss, and drew them out with a gasp. A swirling circle of foam marked where each stroke had fallen, and the boat surged nearer through the swell, till, with a swish of backing paddles, it stopped alongside the ship's ladder, like a horse reined up. Out of the stern there stepped a little figure, just recognisable as a white man. His helmet was soaked and battered out of shape. The tattered relics of his white-duck suit were plastered with yellow palm-oil and various kinds of grease. So was the singlet, which was his only other clothing. So were his face and hands. But he was a white man, and he came up the ship's side with the confident air of Europe.
The purser greeted him on deck, and they disappeared into the purser's cabin to make out the bill of lading. The hatch was opened, and the steam crane began hauling barrels and sacks out of the boat, and then depositing other great barrels in their place, according to the simplest form of barter. The barrels we took smelt of palm-oil; the barrels we gave smelt of rum. When the boat could hold no more, the little man reappeared with the purser, and was introduced to me as Mr. Jacks.
He took off his battered helmet, inclined his body from the middle of his back, and said, "Enchanted, sair!"
Then he gave me his oily hand, which wanted rubbing down with a bit of deck swabbing.
"You fit for go shore one time?" he asked in the pidjin English of the Coast, still keeping his helmet politely raised.