Joseph Conrad, the great Polish-British novelist, visited Singapore several times during his years as a merchant marine. His first visit was in 1883, after his ship, the Palestine, sank off the coast of Sumatra. His third visit was in 1887, following an injury caused by a falling spar. After recuperating at the Officers’ Sailors Home near Singapore’s busy riverfront, he secured a berth on the Vidar, a small schooner-rigged steamer with a “red ensign over the taffrail and at her masthead a house-flag, also red but with a green border and with a white crescent”.

The red ensign belonged to the British Merchant Navy, while the house flag was that of Syed Moshin Bin Salleh Al Jufri, a prominent Straits Arab trader. As a Syed (or Sayyid) he claimed direct descent from the Prophet Mohammed and was held in significant regard by local Malays. Conrad left us with this lasting image of Mohsin in his 1917 novel The Shadow-Line: “An old, dark little man blind in one eye, in a snowy robe and yellow slippers. He was having his hand severely kissed by a crowd of Malay pilgrims to whom he had done some favour, in the way of food and money.”

• Tags: Issue 39, Joseph Conrad, Oliver Raw, Singapore