ABSTRACT
This chapter commences with a description of London’s first sight of Darling, on a ‘wet and drizzly afternoon’ in San Francisco, when the author is amazed by the ‘glowing and radiant’ contrast made by the sunburnt, unshaven ‘prophet'. The juxtaposition of ‘society’ and nature is continued via a brief allusion to Tahiti, ‘one of the most beautiful spots in the world, inhabited by thieves and robbers and liars’. The racial and cultural superiority encoded within London’s participation in territorial expansion and the removal of native ‘idols’ to Europe and America is reinforced by the impression that what London is witnessing is a repeat of an earlier point in his own racial ‘history’. In place of the brash and boorish behaviour that has characterised his lack of control until this point, Deacon manifests the calm under duress required of the real man.
