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The grass through his ribs hid his bones. time working for the Belgians as a rail road project supervisor. He was also storing the evidence of atrocities against blacks that he would report to the world in 1903. Thirteen years later, Casement was to die on a British gallows for his part in the Irish independence movement.
Casement's view of Congo life was contagious. Immediately after noting their first meeting, the Diary records doubts about Conrad's future in the region: "Think just now that my life amongst the people (white) around here cannot be very comfortable. Intend avoid acquaintances as much as possible."
His growing pessimism about Euro pean civilization in Africa finds its full artistic expression twelve years later in Heart of Darkness: "They were dying slowly—it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom."
Other Conradia in this collection published 54 years after the author's death include the novella The Nature of a Crime, which Conrad wrote with his friend Ford Madox Ford under the improbable pseudonym Ignatz von Aschendorf, and a fragment of The Sisters. This is a deservedly obscure work in English, though Editor Zdzislaw Najder notes the book was a great success in Polish because in that lan guage "the syntax, loose and contrived, becomes natural and even limpid."
Conrad's forewords, prefaces, letters to newspapers, appreciations and even a 1923 speech at the 99th annual meeting of the Lifeboat Institution are also here.
To many these pieces may seem unnecessary ballast. To those who served their literary apprenticeships under Captain Conrad, these fragments should have the appeal of messages unexpectedly washed up in bottles.
Excerpt
"Friday, 1st of August, 1890. Put up at Gov[ernmen]t shanty.
Row between the carriers and a man stating himself in Gov[ernmen]t employ, about a mat. Blows with sticks raining hard. Stopped it. Chief came with a youth about 13 suffering from gunshot wound in the head. Bullet entered about an inch above the right eyebrow and came out a little inside. The roots of the hair, fairly in the middle of the brow in a line with the bridge of the nose. Bone not damaged apparently. Gave him a little glycerine to put on the wound made by the bullet on coming out. Harou not very well. Mosquitoes. Frogs. Beastly. Glad to see the end of this stupid tramp. Feel rather seedy. Sun rose red. Very hot day. Wind S[ou]th.
General direction of march—NE by N. Distance—17 miles.