You would imagine yourself in a cavern of the infernal regions. Around the cruiser and the collier a thick halo sullies the atmosphere. Bound together by heavy hawsers, the two boats roll on the waves or in the wind like two black swans. On the decks and broadsides you see only dark forms which move with sluggish gestures; bare feet travel furtively the carpet of coal spread over the steel; electric lights under a black film throw a strange and somewhat sinister light; human beings pass, loaded with heavy sacks, knees bowed, eyes and teeth white in a perspiring negro mask; they pant and blow and suffer. Their muscles are aching with this work fit only for horses, and beg for mercy. Yet they sing. At the moment when the cloud is heaviest, the odor most acrid, and the light most livid, a hoarse young voice rises out of the gloom. It attempts the first verses of some gay song: “The Young Girls of Rochelle!” “Queen Pomare!” “The Gray Lark!” Right and left, high and low, invisible singers respond. The coalholes become alive; behind the partitions of steel a smothered baritone joins its raucous tones to those of a tenor armed with a pick. And in the immense maze of the holds, the broadsides and corridors, flows a harmony, at once sad and joyous, a memory of France in days of peace. There is no conductor and no metronome, but the singing is in good time and tune. The cruiser vibrates in unison with it. When the song is ended, one hears for several minutes only indistinct breathings and stampings. Sack by sack the tons of coal stock the holds, and the monotonous rain accompanies the interminable labor. For Nature begins to grow somber. The worst weather has not come yet, but the sky suggests the melancholy of winter; the South Wind sometimes gives place to the North Wind, and we have bitter hours. Then the coalings are unspeakably dismal; our beautiful cruiser is clothed in a dusty cloak which trails over her hull like a mourning mantle; the smoke from the stacks mingles with the gusts of coaldust which the wind and rain plaster over the guns, the cordage, and one’s own skin. Floods of despair seem to descend from the clouds.