Page:Last essays - 1926.djvu/185

Rh account of Congo navigation, written, no doubt, in relation to the then river charts, is not printed here, simply because it has no personal or literary interest. It is much longer than the first notebook, and is contained on seventy-nine pages, apart from several pages of rough outline maps. I reproduce a portion of one page, in order to show a sample:

“11. N. (A) Long reach to a curved point. Great quantity of dangerous snags along the star shore. Follow the slight bend of the shore with caution. The Middle of the Channel is a SB[sand bank] always covered. The more northerly of the two islands has its lower end bare of trees covered with grass and light green low bushes, then a low flat, and the upper end is timbered with light trees of a darker green tint.”

It will be seen from this passage, which, though typical, is less technical than most, that the second notebook is not really, like the first, so much in the nature of a diary as of a specific aid to navigation. But those who recall the river journey in "Heart of Darkness,” with its dangers and its difficulties, will perceive how this notebook, too, has played its special and impersonal part in the construction of that story.

The title-page of the first notebook is almost all torn out, but the title-page of the second reads, "Up-river Book, commenced 3 August 1890, S.S. Roi des Belges.” Long ago, when I was making, from Conrad’s dictation, a list of the ships he had sailed in, he wrote opposite Roi des Belges“‘Heart of Darkness,' ‘Out-post.’” And, in truth, hints for “Heart of Darkness,” reminders of "Heart of Darkness,” lie thick upon the pages of the first notebook, though "An Outpost of Progress""the lightest part of the loot I carried off from Central