Marlow and the Desert in Heart of Darkness Marlow has always been confused and curious about the parts of the world that have been relatively unexplored by the white race. Ever since he was a child he looked at many maps and wondered what was in the big unmapped holes. Eventually one of these holes was filled with the African continent, but he was still fascinated mostly by this filled hole. When he discovered that perhaps he could get a job with a company exploring the Congo area of ​​Africa, he looked for it and got it. After all, it was like captain of a steamship on the mighty Congo River. This was “a great mighty river… like an immense uncoiled serpent, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving far over a vast country, and its tail in the depths of the earth” (p. 2196). This serpent-like river was full of mystery to the adult Marlow and seemed to call him to it. The wilderness that the African wilderness seems to foster is foreshadowed immediately in Marlow before his journey begins. He discovers that the captain he is replacing has been killed due to a business disagreement between him and a chief. It turns out that the caption thought he got unfair treatment and then proceeded to hit the chief on the head with a stick, after which the chief's son then hit him with a spear and killed him. This promotion of wilderness emerges from the fact that this captain "was the gentlest, quietest creature that had ever walked on two legs...but he had already been out there a couple of years" (p. 2196-2197). Marlow then proceeds to head towards the Congo, and when he finally reaches the company's lower station he begins to see how the white man has come to try to civilize and control the wild nature of Africa and its inhabitants. Blacks were used as slaves at the station to build the railroads. The scene left Marlow with the feeling that blacks "were not enemies, were not criminals, were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and hunger" (p. 2202). Marlow sees how the white man's asserted superiority led to the devastation of the black natives in both spirit and body.