Joseph Conrad: Nostromo

PART FIRST: THE SILVER OF THE MINE 5. CHAPTER FIVE (continued)

For all the indifference of a man of affairs to nature, whose
hostility can always be overcome by the resources of finance, he
could not help being impressed by his surroundings during his
halt at the surveying camp established at the highest point his
railway was to reach. He spent the night there, arriving just too
late to see the last dying glow of sunlight upon the snowy flank
of Higuerota. Pillared masses of black basalt framed like an open
portal a portion of the white field lying aslant against the
west. In the transparent air of the high altitudes everything
seemed very near, steeped in a clear stillness as in an
imponderable liquid; and with his ear ready to catch the first
sound of the expected diligencia the engineer-in-chief, at the
door of a hut of rough stones, had contemplated the changing hues
on the enormous side of the mountain, thinking that in this
sight, as in a piece of inspired music, there could be found
together the utmost delicacy of shaded expression and a
stupendous magnificence of effect.

Sir John arrived too late to hear the magnificent and inaudible
strain sung by the sunset amongst the high peaks of the Sierra.
It had sung itself out into the breathless pause of deep dusk
before, climbing down the fore wheel of the diligencia with stiff
limbs, he shook hands with the engineer.

They gave him his dinner in a stone hut like a cubical boulder,
with no door or windows in its two openings; a bright fire of
sticks (brought on muleback from the first valley below) burning
outside, sent in a wavering glare; and two candles in tin
candlesticks--lighted, it was explained to him, in his
honour--stood on a sort of rough camp table, at which he sat on
the right hand of the chief. He knew how to be amiable; and the
young men of the engineering staff, for whom the surveying of the
railway track had the glamour of the first steps on the path of
life, sat there, too, listening modestly, with their smooth faces
tanned by the weather, and very pleased to witness so much
affability in so great a man.