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post. For comfort, he thought that to educate two savages to the surgeon’s level, to teach them to carry their backsides as Rowley carried his, should take the whole of one summer’s day.
    â€˜There’s no doubt they’re very sick,’ said Ewers complimentarily, over by the long-boat.
    â€˜How far now?’ said Halloran.
    The river had become spacious again, but not in any classic sense. Spits of reeking silt ran out from the bank, peopled with mangroves and harsh birds, cutting the river into zig-zags. The four oars flapped up and down like the legs of a beetle.
    â€˜Three miles,’ someone grunted.
    â€˜It’s a grateful thing to live in an age of philosophy,’ mumbled Ewers, without consequence, reclining in the stern.
    Halloran snorted, implored the sky, held up his left hand and shook it as if it contained a pomegranate. But he said nothing of what he wanted to say, that is, that they had both willingly abased themselves. Which was no disgrace in a relative way, but by the standards of absolute things was an abomination. He felt that they earned their salt meat by servility, but lost the right to deal in ideas. Therefore, Ewers should not mention such a sacred word as philosophy.
    â€˜I didn’t mean what he thought. He’s a hard man for misconstruing,’ he had muttered when he came backfrom watching Partridge’s curiosities. He did not see any virtue in having made a small score against Partridge. Instead, he denied having intended to score; he did not seem to believe that it was wrong to be clouted for having an independent wit. But being clouted on suspicion of having an independent wit, that appalled him. So that now he was oblivious that he had forfeited any rights as regards sacred words.
    â€˜Rousseau,’ he pressed on, recitative again, ‘makes a fashionable thing out of cultivating savages. Savages are us ,it appears, unspoilt. It is the mode to be patient with them, as one is patient with the childishness of a saint. It is a pity that no one has a fashion of patience towards convicted men and women.’
    â€˜Why tell us?’ asked Halloran over his shoulder. ‘We know. There are six of us in this boat, and we’ve all got a spirit of rebellion, and we’ll each of us keep it as big a secret as we can because not one of us wants to be flogged. So if you’re feeling rebellious – well, you might as well not talk about it here. It’s stale news.’
    â€˜Maybe.’ Ewers sounded easeful; lolling on his back and looking here and there across the sky through nearly closed eyes, as if he were Michelangelo about to quote a price for illuminating the firmament. ‘However, Corporal, listen to this! All these petty men: Partridge, Major Sabian, perhaps even Rowley, are writing their diaries, observing, recording the quirks of this land in the hope that one daya putrescent weed, transplanted hence to Kew Gardens, will bear the name Flos Perniciosus Partridgensis. ’
    Ewers opened his eyes, raised his head, secure that no one had understood his Latin joke.
    â€˜I see,’ said Halloran impatiently, but kept to his principle of not rebelling in private for some hours after he had grovelled in public.
    â€˜Hah, yes. Partridge intends to publish a record of the colony, so too does Sabian, if an editor can be found to spell for them and to stand between them and the mysteries of the comma. And you, Corporal, would not have to be the Prophet Isaiah to tell who will prepare the plates for those sublime works and to foresee whose name will not appear on the title page. Well?’
    â€˜I suppose the answer to both is your name, Ewers.’
    Ewers’ blind skyward face waggled.
    â€˜Yes. My name, Ewers!’
    The smell of mud affected Halloran with indifference to Partridge’s schemes. Mangroves faced him with their lizard-skin front feet in the water. It was all millennia away from the printing