Lord Jim

by Joseph Conrad

  3. war-comrade: A literal translation of Kriegskamerad (German).

  4. off the hooks: Out of order.

  5. a snare and ashes in the mouth: A possible play on ‘a snare and a delusion’, a familiar version of Lord Chief Justice Thomas, Baron Denman's (1779–1854) warning that trial by jury, if tampered with, would become ‘a delusion, a mockery, and a snare’ (Regina vs. O'Connell, House of Lords, 4 September 1844).

  6. weapons of a crocodile: If a crocodile's weapons are tears, there is a possible pun concocted from the French l'armes de crocodile (the weapons of the crocodile) for larmes de crocodile (crocodile tears).

  7. Batu Kring: ‘Dry Stone’ or ‘Dry Rock’ from the Malay: batu ('stone’ or ‘rock’) and kring (dry).

  XXIV

  1. block-tin: A soft white metal, block tin has extremely pure tin content, is lustrous and highly malleable.

  2. spectral herd… stream: An image derived from the classical underworld. On drinking from the River Lethe, the dead obtained forgetfulness before reincarnation.

  XXV

  1. You hear… games: Cf. McNair: ‘The Admiral, in referring to the barbarity of the Jugra piracy, advised and urged upon the Sultan [of Selangor] to caution his people against being guilty of such acts in future, pointing out how it was impossible that they could be left unpunished… The Sultan listened very attentively, and then turning very quickly round to his people, he exclaimed: “Dungar lah, jangan kitah main main lagi! – Hear now, my people! Don't let us have any more of this little game!”’ (p. 289).

  2. the white man… the white man: The free indirect discourse imitates polite speech in the third person, translating orang putih (Malay).

  3. chewed betel: A mild sedative, betel is composed of leaves of the piper betel, the fruit of the areca palm and lime. In addition to causing the mouth and saliva to become red, with time it blackens and corrodes the teeth. It is chewed in South and South-east Asia though less than in Conrad's day.

  4. old wife… slave-girls: Cf. Wallace: ‘Near a window sat the Queen squatting on a rough wooden arm-chair, chewing the everlasting sirih and betel-nut… Several young women, some the Rajah's daughters, other slaves, were standing about’ (p. 226).

  5. respect… dignity: Cf. Wallace: ‘The only thing that excited some degree of admiration was the quiet and dignified manner of the Rajah, and the great respect always paid to him’ (p. 168).

  6. The immigrants from Celebes: Patusan's topography, derived mainly from the Berau River region of north-east Borneo, explains the references to the Celebes (present-day Sulawesi, Indonesia) here, that island being considerably closer to Borneo than very far distant north-west Sumatra. The conflation or confusion suggests that at this stage of the novel's writing Conrad may have had Berau in mind as Patusan's setting.

  7. intelligent… courage: Cf. McNair: ‘They compare most favourably with the Malays proper, being intelligent, courageous, and enterprising… The character of the Bugis is not always of the best, for he has been termed a beggar, treacherous, given to stealing, braver than a Malay, but not possessing the other's good points, being one who will lay his plans to obtain revenge on the offending party’ (pp. 130–31).

  8. Bugis: A Malay people of the south Celebes and adjacent islands.

  9. Sherif Ali: A title from the Arabic, sherif indicates descent from the Prophet Muhammad through Husein, his grandson. Conrad possibly borrowed the name: ‘the brothers [sic] of Serif Ali, the first sultan of Magindanau, of the Mahommedan religion, became King of Borneo towards the latter part of the fifteenth century’ (Low, p. 94).

  XXVI

  1. Dain Waris: Roughly ‘The Distinguished Heir’ or ‘The Honourable Heir’, not a given name (Malay: properly daeng, an honorific; waris means ‘heir’).

  XXVII

  1. Already the legend had gifted him with supernatural powers: Cf. the following description of James Brooke from Wallace (p. 103): ‘Was it not natural that they should refuse to believe that he was a man? for of pure benevolence combined with great power, they had had no experience among men. They naturally concluded that he was a superior being, come down upon earth to confer blessings on the afflicted. In many villages where he had not been seen, I was asked strange questions about him. Was he not as old as the mountains? Could he not bring the dead to life? And they firmly believe that he can give them good harvests, and make their fruit-trees bear an abundant crop.’

  2. dashedest… sanguinary… bally: Rather than a descent into ‘rejuvenated adolescence’, as the language here has sometimes been characterized, Jim's quite salty words may be rendered by Marlow in genteel euphemisms intended to avoid offence. ‘Dashedest’ replaces ‘damnedest’; ‘sanguinary’ and ‘bally’ (originally public school slang) replace the vulgar and impolite ‘bloody’.

  3. Tamb’ Itam: The name occurs in McNair (pp. 148–9), and Keppel (vol. II, pp. 90ff) mentions a Tama-itam Balari. Sherry states that it means ‘black messenger’ (p. 167), derived from the Malay tambi (messenger or office boy) with the elision of hitam (black). However, rather than a nickname this may be the surname or the given name Tan to which the post-positional adjective hitam has been added and elided.

  4. white lord: A literal translation of the Malay tuan putih.

  5. immense: Probably a Gallicism, the connotation being ‘superb’.

  6. goddess: Fama was the Greco-Roman personification of rumour, not a goddess.

  XXVIII

  1. 230 miles south of Patusan river: Given Conrad's changing sense of Patusan's locale, this may be based on Samarinda, south of Berau, one of the ports of call on Borneo of the Vidar in which he made four trips in 1887–8. Like Berau, the part-model for Patusan, the town is not on the coast but accessed by sea by sinuous waterways. The distance between Berau and Samarinda is approximately 185 miles as the crow flies or 285 nautical miles.

  2. third-class deputy-assistant resident: In the Dutch East Indies, a Resident was the head of a Province, a Residency being divided into Afdelingen (divisions) in which the indigenous Regent and an Assistant Resident worked alongside. The rank below Assistant Resident was controleur. The rank mentioned here is fictional, the lowly status suggesting the locale's economic and political importance.

  3. stone of the Sultan of Succadana… Dutch inquiry: One of the world's largest diamonds, the stone played a role in the eighteenth-century history of Sukadana in western Borneo (present-day Kalimantan, Indonesia). A report on it by Major G. Müller, sent by the authorities in Batavia to investigate in situ, appeared in C. J. Temminck, ed., Coup d'œil general sur les possessions neerlandaises dansl'Inde archipelagique (Leiden, 1846–9), vol. II, pp. 282–5.

  4. they walked… most extraordinary way: Malay culture frowns on public displays of affection between the sexes as showing a lack of decorum and a failure of self-control.

  XXIX

  1. janissary: Turkish infantry constituting the sultan's guard.

  2. Nazarene: A Christian, from the Malay nasrani, derived from Arabic.

  3. dogs: Believed to be carriers of evil spirits, dogs are considered unclean and shunned in some Islamic cultures.

  4. bear a charmed life: The best-known source for this commonplace is Shakespeare's Macbeth: ‘I bear a charmed life, which must not yield / To one of woman born’ (V.viii.12).

  XXX

  1. mute as a fish: A Gallicism from muet comme un carpe (speechless as a carp).

  XXXI

  1. heavens like brass resounding with a great voice: ‘And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying… there shall be no more death… neither shall there be any more pain’, Revelation 21:3–4.

  2. dammar: (Malay: damar) an inflammable resin extracted from various trees and used in lacquers and varnishes.

  3. deception: A Gallicism from déception (disappointment).

  4. snorting profoundly: A Gallicism from profondement, ‘deeply’ being the usual English here.

  XXXII

  1. the Sphinx: A mythological figure, part-woman and p
art-animal, the Sphinx of Thebes posed riddles that had to be answered or the interrogated person's life forfeited. The most notable literary appearance of this figure is in the story of Oedipus.

  XXXIII

  1. What would you have?: A Gallicism: Que voulez-vous?

  2. Styx: One of the rivers of the classical underworld, across which the souls of the dead were ferried by Charon. The River Acheron is black.

  XXXIV

  1. Magna est veritas et: ‘Magna est veritas et praevalet’ (Latin: ‘Great is truth, and mighty above all things’), from the Vulgate translation of the Apocrypha, 1 Esdras 4:41.

  2. Justice… balance: The figure of Justice holding scales is a conventional icon. ‘Balance’ is a Gallicism.

  XXXVI

  1. Ever-undiscovered Country: Shakespeare, Hamlet, III.i.78–9: ‘The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn / No traveller returns.’

  2. traced: A Gallicism from tracer (to write).

  3. ‘who once gives way… wrong’: Cf. ‘continue to be virtuous, and you will finally be that happy being whom you describe; and, to this purpose, you have nothing more to do than to pursue that conduct which will always yield you the highest pleasures even in this present life. But he who once gives way to any known vice, in the very instant hazards his total depravity and total ruin. You must, therefore, fixedly resolve never, through any possible motives, to do anything which you believe to be wrong’ (Letter of Wednesday, March 1790, from the Revd William Hazlitt to his son William (1778–1830), later one of the best known essayists of the Romantic period, cited in W. Carew Hazlitt's Memoirs of William Hazlitt (1867), vol. I, p. 14).

  4. bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh: ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh’ (Genesis 2:23).

  5. who toys with the sword shall perish by the sword: ‘For all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword’ (Matthew 26:52).

  XXXVII

  1. abode of despair: Possibly an allusion to the Cave of Despayre in the epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590), Book I, canto ix, by Edmund Spenser (1552–99).

  2. casuarina-trees: A species of fir with delicate, feathery leaves, found throughout South-east Asia. It takes its name from the casawary, a species of ostrich.

  XXXVIII

  1. Cape York to Eden Bay: Respectively, a peninsula on the northeast coast of Australia, and a port in New South Wales.

  2. gold-digging days: The Australian gold rushes in Victoria State in 1851 and in Queensland in 1858 are appropriate to the novel's time period.

  3. Bully Hayes or the mellifluous Pease: Captain William Henry (‘Bully’) Hayes (1829?–77) and his sometime partner Captain ‘Ben’ Pease, formerly Lieutenant George Pease of the United States Navy (d. 1870s), both American, were pirates and adventurers in the South Seas. Hayes is mentioned in By Reef and Palm (1894) a collection of stories by the Australian writer Louis Becke (1855–1913), commented on by Conrad (Letters, vol. II, pp. 298, 302–4), and both appear in Becke's The Ebbing of the Tide (1896).

  4. Dundreary-whiskered… Dirty Dick: ‘Dundreary-whiskered’ means having long and bushy side-whiskers, after Lord Dundreary, a character in Our American Cousin (1858), a play by the English dramatist and editor of Punch Tom Taylor (1817–80). ‘Dirty Dick’, though a pirate name, lacks a historical precedent.

  5. Kanakas: Melanesians brought to Australia to work for hire on contract.

  6. copra: Dried coconut from which oil is extracted.

  7. Clapham: A London suburb south of the Thames.

  8. Malaita: A small volcanic island in the Solomon group in the South Pacific. At the time of the novel, it was a British protectorate.

  9. Nuka-Hiva: A volcanic island, the largest of the Marquesas group in the South Pacific, annexed by France.

  10. guns for the insurgents: An anachronism, nationalist sentiment against Spanish colonial occupation becoming active in the Philippines only from the 1890s, after the novel's historical timeframe.

  11. Solomon Islander: That is, a Melanesian, a person indigenous to the Solomon group, off New Guinea.

  12. Tagals: A people mainly from central Luzon in the Philippines.

  13. Poulo Laut: Malay: Sea Island (present-day Pulau Laut).

  14. Tamatave: A port town (present-day Toamasina) on the Indian Ocean in eastern Madagascar.

  15. lodgment: Military term: quarters for soldiers.

  XXXIX

  1. tower of strength: A commonplace: cf. ‘The King's name is a tower of strength’, Shakespeare, Richard III, V.iii.12, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92), ‘Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington’, ‘O fall'n at length that tower of strength / Which stood four-square to all the winds that blow’ (stanza iv).

  2. special authorisation: Storing large quantities of explosives could allow for hostile action against Dutch rule.

  3. Haji Saman: ‘Haji’ is a title of respect and term of address for a Muslim who has completed the Hajj. The proper name is possibly borrowed from a Bornean chief of piratical tendencies whose defeat in 1846 by James Brooke is recounted in Mundy, vol. II.

  4. Levuka: A port city on Ovalau Island, Fiji, in the South Pacific, and briefly (1874–82) its capital when the islands were annexed by Great Britain.

  XL

  1. Scourge of God: An allusion to Attila the Hun (c.406–53), who earned this epithet for his despotism and ruthlessness.

  2. coon: Given that the speaker is an American, a possible racist epithet for a person of colour, but Conrad's familiarity with American coarse slang is open to question and in British mid-and late nineteenth-century usage a ‘coon’ was simply a sly or shrewd individual.

  3. scouted: An obsolete form of ‘scooted’.

  4. Si-Lapa by name: Si is a Malay term of courteous reference, not of address, indicating acquaintance with the person referred to. In some of the sources that Conrad drew on this could be construed as part of a name.

  5. a big drum… droning: Cf. the following description of James Brooke's return to Sarawak in Keppel, vol. I, p. 18: ‘It had been the Rajah's intention to reach his capital without fuss; but… the whole population had been thrown into a state of the greatest excitement and not an individual would remain at home, who could procure a conveyance down the river. The following morning presented, indeed, a lively and exciting scene; the whole Sarawak population appeared to be afloat; all the largest and finest boats had been put into requisition, and came with tomtoms beating, streamers and colours flying.’

  XLI

  1. pipeclayed: Whitened with kaolin, a clay used to make pipes.

  XLII

  1. life for a life: An echo of ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ (Matthew 5:38).

  2. from a dark source: In the sense of being undiscovered, as was long the case, for example, of the source of the Nile.

  3. their welfare… mourning: A possible echo of ‘thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried’ (Ruth 1:16–17).

  XLIII

  1. Ramadan: The ninth lunar month, observed by Muslims by fasting and sexual abstinence during daylight hours, and hence by a marked increase of nocturnal activity, in particular the preparation of food for the taking of a meal before sunrise.

  2. water-dust: Fine droplets of water.

  XLIV

  1. consecrated formula: A Gallicism from la formule consacrée.

  2. bullet in his forehead: Cf. McNair's account of the murder of Doraman and his companions at the hands of pirates: ‘About six o'clock Doraman told us to bring the rice. When he was about to begin eating, shots were fired from both boats. Doraman fell to the shots… Three of our people jumped into the water and were stabbed, and all the others in my boat were killed and stabbed’ (pp. 283–4).

  XLV

  1. evoked ghost: The image derives directly or indirectly from the famous episode in Homer's Odyssey, Book XI in which Odysseus, offering blood and libations of wine at the threshold
of the underworld, calls up the ghosts of heroes and companions to question them.

  Glossary of Nautical Terms

  This glossary briefly explains all nautical terms, and the vocabulary related to shipping, as used in Lord Jim. Admiral W. H. Smyth's The Sailor's Word-Book: An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms (London, 1867) can be recommended as providing useful detailed descriptions relevant to the period in which Conrad was writing.

  abaft: in the rear of or behind

  aft: (‘after’) in or near a ship's hinder part or stern

  angle-iron: ironwork shaped like an ‘L’ used to strengthen a ship's hull

  athwart: in a direction across a ship's centre line or course

  belaying-pins: pegs in a ship's rail to which ropes can be attached

  binnacle: case or box in which the compass is stored and fitted with a lamp, or the stand on which the compass is mounted

  blue-jackets: sailors in the Royal Navy

  boat-chock: fitting through which an anchor or mooring lines are led; usually U-shaped in order to reduce chafe

  boat-stretcher: a cross-piece against which a rower braces his feet

  bowman: rower seated nearest the bow (the forward part of a boat or ship), especially in a racing boat

  bridge: elevated platform above the upper deck from which the ship is navigated