Part 2 In The Breton Land Chapter 9

Sylvestre was soon out on the ocean, rapidly whisked away over theunknown seas, far more blue than Iceland's. The ship that carried himoff to the confines of Asia was ordered to go at full speed and stopnowhere. Ere long he felt that he was far away, for the speed wasunceasing, and even without a care for the sea or the wind. As he wasa topman, he lived perched aloft, like a bird, avoiding the soldierscrowded upon the deck.

　　Twice they stopped, however, on the coast of Tunis, to take up moreZouaves and mules; from afar he had perceived the white cities amidsands and arid hills. He had even come down from his top to look atthe dark-brown men draped in their white robes who came off in smallboats to peddle fruit; his mates told him that these were Bedouins.

　　The heat and the sun, which were unlessened by the autumn season, madehim feel out of his element.

　　One day they touched at Port Said. All the flags of Europe wavedoverhead from long staves, which gave it an aspect of Babel on afeast-day, and the glistening sands surrounded the town like a movingsea.

　　They had stopped there, touching the quays, almost in the midst of thelong streets full of wooden shanties. Since his departure, Sylvestrenever had seen the outside world so closely, and the movement andnumbers of boats excited and amused him.

　　With never-ending screeching from their escape-pipes, all these boatscrowded up in the long canal, as narrow as a ditch, which wound itselfin a silvery line through the infinite sands. From his post on high hecould see them as in a procession under a window, till disappearing inthe plain.

　　On the canal all kinds of costumes could be seen; men in many-colouredattire, busy and shouting like thunder. And at night the clamour ofconfused bands of music mingled with the diabolical screams of thelocomotives, playing noisy tunes, as if to drown the heart-breakingsorrow of the exiles who for ever passed onward.

　　The next day, at sunrise, they, too, glided into the narrow ribbon ofwater between the sands. For two days the steaming in the long filethrough the desert lasted, then another sea opened before them, andthey were once again upon the open. They still ran at full speedthrough this warmer expanse, stained like red marble, with theirboiling wake like blood. Sylvestre remained all the time up in histop, where he would hum his old song of "Jean-Francois de Nantes," toremind him of his dear brother Yann, of Iceland, and the good oldbygone days.

　　Sometimes, in the depths of the shadowy distance, some wonderfullytinted mountain would arise. Notwithstanding the distance and thedimness around, the names of those projected capes of countriesappeared as the eternal landmarks on the great roadways of the earthto the steersmen of this vessel; but a topman is carried on like aninanimate thing, knowing nothing, and unconscious of the distance overthe everlasting, endless waves.

　　All he felt was a terrible estrangement from the things of this world,which grew greater and greater; and the feeling was very defined andexact as he looked upon the seething foam behind, and tried toremember how long had lasted this pace that never slackened night orday. Down on deck, the crowd of men, huddled together in the shadow ofthe awnings, panted with weariness. The water and the air, even thevery light above, had a dull, crushing splendour; and the fadelessglory of those elements were as a very mockery of the human beingswhose physical lives are so ephemeral.

　　Once, up in his crow's nest, he was gladdened by the sight of flocksof tiny birds, of an unknown species, which fell upon the ship like awhirlwind of coal dust. They allowed themselves to be taken andstroked, being worn out with fatigue. All the sailors had them as petsupon their shoulders. But soon the most exhausted among them began todie, and before long they died by thousands on the rigging, yards,ports, and sails--poor little things!--under the blasting sun of theRed Sea. They had come to destruction, off the Great Desert, fleeingbefore a sandstorm. And through fear of falling into the blue watersthat stretched on all sides, they had ended their last feeble flightupon the passing ship. Over yonder, in some distant region of Libya,they had been fledged in masses. Indeed, there were so many of them,that their blind and unkind mother, Nature, had driven away before herthis surplus, as unmoved as if they had been superabundant men. On thescorching funnels and ironwork of the ship they died away; the deckwas strewn with their puny forms, only yesterday so full of life,songs, and love. Now, poor little black dots, Sylvestre and the otherspicked them up, spreading out their delicate blue wings, with a lookof pity, and swept them overboard into the abysmal sea.

　　Next came hosts of locusts, the spawn of those conjured up by Moses,and the ship was covered with them. At length, though, it surged on alifeless blue sea, where they saw no things around them, except fromtime to time the flying fish skimming along the level water.