the midday sun
The steamer was a well-found craft compared with any others that had navigated the river before , and was a new venture on the part of one Purvis by name , who had lately acquired considerable property on the river-bank . He was a gentle-mannered , nervous-looking individual , with weak , pale eyes that watered incessantly , and he had a curious habit unknown except to town dwellers in Argentine of dressing like a City clerk . All the men in camp wore breeches and wide felt hats and polo boots , but Purvis was habitually dressed in dark tweed clothes and a bowler hat . Even on the steamer , and in the heat of the midday sun , he wore the same kit , and walked up and down the deck with an umbrella held over his head . He spoke half a dozen languages , but seemed to think in Spanish , for whenever he spoke quickly or impulsively that was the tongue which he used . The crew of the steamer was composed of a queer mixture of elements ; and , whatever their moral qualities may have been , their appearance would not have been altogether reassuring to a man , for instance , travelling with a good many valuables about him . There was Grant the engineer , who never spoke at all , and who loved his engines with a personal love ; Pedro , a man with big , melancholy eyes , half Basque and half Italian ; an old Belgian stoker and a nigger from South Carolina ; and , lastly , John Lewis -LRB- or Black John , as he was always called -RRB- , who came from a Danish West Indian island , and who said he was an Irishman and had been a cabinetmaker .