While reading last night, I found a strange contrast in Conrad's view and depiction of the natives. From about pages 49-50, he seems to view the black men on the boat as calm, yet ravenously hungry savages, wondering why they did not choose to eat the white men they outnumbered. Yet when the black helmsman is shot by an arrow, Marlow seems to mourn his death, with a graphic description of his condition. He speaks of him as a gifted creature, being able to talk with words, and while he seemed second-rate, I feel that he was one of the only people whom Marlow may have thought of as a sort of friend. But again, it's a little startling this contrast, and part of me wonders if Conrad had edited or gone back to this part of the novel before.
Again, we can see the sort of futility and making lots of smoke with the ginger-haired man as well.
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