Sluggish Steamboat

“…crept the little begrimed steamboat, like a sluggish beetle crawling on the floor of a lofty portico” (35).

A portico is a type of covered porch supported by columns typically found in the southern United States, with the influence originating in Greece and Rome. Conrad uses the imagery of a small, deliberate beetle crawling across the floor of a large porch to relate the sluggishness and insignificance that the steamboat feels as it slowly works its way up the river.