THE CARGO SHIP	15
outbreaks hushed up on the French coast, never
reported on the Liberian: one was seldom allowed
to escape the subject of fever. One could begin a con-
versation with religion, politics, books; it always
ended with malaria, plague, yellow fever. As long as
one was at sea it was a joke, like somebody else's
vicious wife; when one was on land it was like a grim
story intended to make the flesh creep, but one
became conscious then of people who wouldn't play,
who preferred something comforting.
Something like A Village in a Valley by Mr.
Beverley Nichols, which was in the small library. One
reads strange books in a ship, books one would never
dream of reading at home: like Lady Eleanor
Smith's Tzigane) and the novels of Warwick Deeping
and W. B. Maxwell: a lot of books, written without
truth, without compulsion, one dull word following
another, books to read while you wait for the bus,
while you strap-hang, in between the Boss's dicta-
tions, while you eat your A. B. C. lunch; a whole
industry founded on a want of leisure and a want of
happiness.
At Madeira it was raining. The touts were out at
ten in the morning in the shabby notorious town.
One drank sweet wine at the Golden Gates, and the
rain dripped off the curious phallic hats hanging
outside the shops. The touts wore straw hats with
Cambridge ribbons; they kept at one's elbow all the
way round Funchal; they weren't a bit discouraged
because it was raining, because it was only just after
breakfast. "Luxe," they kept on saying, and "Sex"
and something about dancing girls. Their industry,
like Mr. Beverley Nichols's, was founded on a want