In my opinion I think Conrad is a racist. The one specific portion of the text that caught my attention was when he is talking about his shipmate. “You wonder I didn't go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no -- I didn't. Fine sentiments, you say? Fine sentiments, be hanged! I had no time. I had to mess about with white-lead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those leaky steampipes -- I tell you. I had to watch the steering, and circumvent those snags, and get the tin-pot along by hook or by crook. There was surface- truth enough in these things to save a wiser man. And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hindlegs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-guage with an evident effort of intrepidity -- and he had filed teeth, too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three orna- mental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. He was useful because he had been instructed; and what he knew was this -- that should the water in that trans- parent thing disappear, the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and take a terrible vengeance.” Before this excerpt he talks about how these people are human and how they have feelings like all other people, ugly, evil, good or whatever. He here tries to separate himself from them saying that he has important business to attend to such as fixing steam pipes. He also talks about his ship mate very condescendingly. He describes him as a dog and that when the water boiler empties that a “god” gets angered. Also the imagery and adjectives he uses that he uses to describe the people are littered throughout the piece like Achebe says.