Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia—including India, after which the ocean is named on the north, on the west by Africa, on the east by Australia, and on the south by the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, by Antarctica.). Read more on Wikipedia

The Indian Ocean probably featured in his imagination before he crossed the ocean twice in 1927 on his Far East voyage aboard the Blue Funnel ship Pyrrhus. Lowry had already created or heard the myth of his grandfather being lost in the Indian Ocean:

Evelyn Boden Lowry (1873–1950) ... She was the daughter of a master mariner, Lyon Boden, lost at sea in circumstances that were variously described and embellished , by both Evelyn and her son, in the telling. As Lowry told the story to Margerie (who, again, seems to have taken it as gospel)Captain Boden and his command, The Scottish Isles, were becalmed in the Indian Ocean, the crew dying of cholera;  so the Captain gave orders to a nearby British gunboat to blow up the ship, with him on board. Bradbrook debunks this by saying that Captain Boden had died of cholera, the news relayed to a passing vessel before before The Scottish Isles vanished and was lost in a storm with all hands. Bowker found that the ship that John [sic] Boden disappeared on 26 April 1884, somewhere in the Indian Ocean, was the Vice Reine, of which Boden was not captain but first. Chris Ackerley Paradise Street blues: Lowry's Liverpool in Writing Liverpool: Essays and Interviews By Michael Murphy, Deryn Rees-Jones 2007

Lowry makes reference to the myth of his grandfather's loss in Ultramarine Pgs 110-11; and in letters to Derek Pethwick dated 6th March 1950 (Collected Letters Vol 2 Pg. 207) and to George Sumner Albee dated 17th March 1957 in which he again refers to his grandfather being "at the bottom of the Indian Ocean." (Collected Letters Vol 2 Pg. 896); in the short story 'The Forest Path to the Spring'; "And I thought of my grandfather, becalmed in the Indian Ocean, the crew dying of cholera,my grandfather giving orders finally, at the beginning of wireless, to the oncoming gunboat, to be blown up himself with the ship." (Pg.258); in his incomplete novel La Morida the West Coast"Could their captain love these diesel-engined monstrosities to the extent, like his grandfather, of going down with them?" (Pg 188)

The ocean would have featured in many of the books and magazines read by Lowry about the sea including Joseph Conrad's novels and short stories, Bill Adams's works; James Johnston Abraham's The Surgeon's Log , Eugene O'Neill etc. It is interesting to note that the father of the character Swede Chris C. Christopherson in Eugene O'Neill's play Anna Christie died in the Indian Ocean. Lowry received a copy of the play as a prize at his school The Leys. (Collected Letters Vol. 1 Pg. 26).

Lowry makes other references to the ocean other than alluding to the death of his grandfather; in a letter to Betty and Gerald Noxon dated January 15th 1943; "I wish you could both be here for we seem to see potential pictures for Betty everywhere and moreover we are putting on some magnificent freezing blue weatherwith the sun raining diamonds in Burrard Inlet and sea-gulls and the washing frozen on the line and a two hundred foot alder plunging above the house like the mast of a ship on a rough day in the Indian Ocean. (The Letters of Malcolm Lowry and Gerald Noxon: 1940-1952 Pg. 50); and the novella Lunar Caustic when Lowry's alter-ego Bill Plantagenet recalls sailing across the Indian Ocean with a cargo of animals; "The panthers died, in the Indian Ocean at night the lions roared, the elephants trumpeted and vomited so that none" (Pg. 69); and again in Under The Volcano; "A piece of driftwood on the Indian Ocean. Is India my home? Disguise myself as an untouchable, which should not be so difficult, and go to prison on the Andaman Islands for seventy-seven years, until England gives India her freedom?" (Pg. 157)  "This chow the crew hadn't eaten went into the Indian Ocean, into any ocean, rather, as the saying is, than “let it go back to the office.” (Pg. 165 )

Lowry further refers to the ocean in his incomplete novel La Morida the West Coast; " — ridiculous, unimaginative name, although it would be beautiful if encountered, say, in the Indian Ocean — or would be beautiful in French Cote Aouest — which makes him reflect about the prophet being without.. " (Pg. 188) and later; "it were eponymous, and certainly not so unimaginative as the beautiful horrible romantic old freighter he'd seen in the Indian Ocean, the British Motorist — the ship has a cargo of rolls of rusty barbed wire. Ugly ships. Possibly she'd done yeoman service in the war. Had oil-tankers got souls? Could their captain love these diesel-engined monstrosities to the extent, like his grandfather, of going down with them?" (Pg 188) and his posthumously published novel Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid; "of hundreds of miles behind this childhood dream of heaven, and rolling valleys, the dream of the sailor sleeping on the poop in the vast violet of the Indian Ocean as it deepens at noon. (Pg. 221)

James Johnston Abraham The Surgeon's Log

Lowry refers to James Johnston Abraham's The Surgeon's Log in his short story 'Enter One In Sumptuous Armour'; "Closing the dictionary I jammed it back next to The Surgeon's Log."

We must assume because of Lowry's mention of The Surgeon's Log that he had read the book. The Surgeon's Log was published in 1911 and ran to 31 editions with photographs.

Ship's surgeon and his first book

For an impecunious young man this was bad news as he could not afford to take the time off. He had agreed, after graduation, that he would not be a financial burden on his father who could well have afforded to help him out. Indeed, he had offered to buy him a practice had he not pursued the surgical route. The pathologist roommate came up with the idea of a sea voyage and he enlisted for a six month spell as a ship's surgeon on a 10,000 ton cargo ship which carried no passengers, sailing from Birkenhead. 

He had such a splendid time that he became somewhat of a bore about it upon his return and his pathologist friend persuaded him to write a book about his experiences. He did, and hawked it around nine publishers; they all turned it down. One day, when having afternoon tea in the Staff Room of St Peter's Hospital, Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, he looked out of the window. Across the road he saw the offices of Chapman & Hall, Dickens' publishers. He sent them the manuscript and the Managing Director, Arthur Waugh (Evelyn's father) accepted it. He had originally called it The Voyage of the Clytemestra, the name of his ship, but Waugh changed the title to The Surgeon's Log' and it became a bestseller on both sides of the Atlantic and was still selling steadily in the late 1950s, particularly in its Penguin form. It is a beautifully written descriptive travelogue, not dissimilar in style to that of Eric Newby.

It must have been a wonderful and restful experience which was what he needed. With only the crew to look after he had little medical work to do and was able to relax on deck in the tropics and go ashore in the ports. They sailed non-stop to Port Said, traversed the Suez Canal and then crossed the Indian Ocean to Penang. They sailed down the Malacca Strait to Singapore. From Singapore they sailed to Japan and visited Nagasaki, Moji and then by the Inland Sea to Kobe and on to Yokohama (and Tokyo). From there they sailed to the Dutch East Indies and thence home via Marseilles. J S Bingham A publisher, a bobbin-boy and the Society Presidential address to the Medical Society for the Study of Venereal Diseases, 28 April, 1995 at The Royal College of Physicians of London: Genitourin Med 1995;71:314-322

The appeal of such a book to the young Lowry is not surprising given that his work is littered with references to readings of books about ships and sea voyages. The apparent 'splendid time' had by Abraham may have convinced a young Lowry that he could replicate the experience and write up his own 'log'.

Lowry's 1927 voyage to the Far East followed a very similar route to one made by Abraham. Both Lowry and Abraham sailed on Blue Funnel ships and both disguised the name of the real ship they sailed on. They both had similar mixed attitudes to race and gender apparent in both the Surgeon's Log and Ultramarine which could be argued reflect white/European attitudes of the period though both temper their racism with sympathetic views to peoples they come across.

Abraham informs  the reader that he carefully logged conversations and details for later use which may have tied into ideas Lowry was having in the mid-1920s about being a writer. One major difference is that Abraham's book is an out and out travelogue whereas Lowry's Ultramarine is a far more complex text though Lowry was accused by early reviewers of the novel of adding 'local colour' to the novel.

Lowry's eventual log details a socially different class experience to the one detailed by Abraham who concentrated on the officers as opposed to Lowry's attempts to empathasise with the crew. Though Abraham does explore details of the Chinese crew's experience and life aboard the ship.

One possible major influence of The Surgeon's Log is providing Lowry with the title of his novel Ultramarine as Abraham describes the sea as ultramarine; "gazing dreamily out over a sea of ultramarine." (Pg. 189) and the sky as ultramarine; "smiling under a sky of purest ultramarine shading gradually to a pearly-grey as it touched the horizon." (Pg. 227).

The only similarity in 'plot' between the two books is comparison can be made between Horner's desire to rescue the Japanese woman Ponta from the 'tea-shop' in Kobe and Dana's fantasy of rescuing Olga from the brothel in Tsjang Tsjang (Dairen). There is also the possibility that the references to Moji in Ultramarine stem from Lowry's recollection from The Surgeon's Log, which features a visit to the port where his ship takes on coal (Pgs. 122-144).

James Abraham was born in Coleraine, County Londonderry, and was educated there and at Trinity College Dublin where he studied medicine. He practised in County Clare and was appointed Resident Medical Officer to London Dock Hospital and Rescue Home in 1908. In 1914 he travelled to Serbia, where he administered to the Serbian army and played a major part in bolstering morale. He coped with inadequate supplies, outbreaks of typhoid, scarlet fever, recurrent fever, smallpox and a typhus epidemic. He was the first doctor on location to diagnose typhus, and he and the Serbian Army Medical Corps managed to contain it. He was then called to the Middle East and latterly became a Harley Street specialist. He was created a Knight of St John Consulting Surgeon at the Princess Beatrice Hospital in London. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, President of the Irish Medical Graduates' Association and in 1949 won the Arnott Medal. He was author of The Night Nurse (1913); Surgeon's Journal, Balkan Log and The Surgeon's Log, which ran to thirty-one editions. He was awarded an honorary Doctorate in 1946. The Dictionary of Ulster Biography 


Read a detailed obituary in Royal College of Surgeons of England Annals

Moji, Japan

Moji-ku is a ward of Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. It is the former city of Moji which was one of five cities merged to create Kitakyūshū in 1963. It faces the city of Shimonoseki across the Kanmon Straits between Honshū and Kyūshū.

Moji was first made into a port by Suematsu Kenchō with the financial backing of Shibusawa Eiichi in 1889. It was chiefly used for the transportation of coal, though there is a traditional song about the sale of bananas imported into Moji from Southeast Asia which survives to this day (Banana no tataki-uri). Moji was also the departure point for many troops in the Russo-Japanese War who were ferried across to Korea.

Lowry refers to the port in his novel Ultramarine when Norman is warning Dana about contracting venereal disease when he goes ashore in Tsjang Tsjang (Dairen); "Voyage before last, in Muji, it was, I picked up, the finest dose you ever saw, voyage before last in the Maharajah - she's lying in this port now" (Pg. 34) and again when the crew of Oedipus Tyrannus are talking about how Smithy contracted venereal disease in Moji; "got it in Muji he had, and never said damn all to anybody.." (Pg. 61).

There is no record that Lowry visited the port on his 1927 voyage to the Far East. Lowry was familiar with J. Johnston Abraham's The Surgeon's Log, which features a visit to the port where his ship takes on coal (Pgs. 122-144), which may have inspired him to feature the port in Ultramarine. Or Lowry may have known that Moji was a regular port of call for Blue Funnel ships to take on coal on trips to Japan.