two women were still knitting the black wool. People were arriving, and the younger woman was walking back and forth introducing them. The older one sat on her chair. Her flat cloth slippers were propped up on a foot-warmer and she a cat was laying in her lap.
I wonder why most of his commentary right now is about the women around him?
Yes, two black hens.
Odd to say that people would get in a fight about two hens and someone died from it! It must have been more than that, maybe it had to do with the two different cultures of the European captain and the natives?
The snake had charmed me.
referring to the simile again- river
I stared at a map of this land in a store window, looking something like a silly bird staring at a snake.
This simile really shows how big the congo river is, a bird is very small compared to a snake
After a long pause, he said, in a shaky voice, “I guess you guys know that I once worked on a river boat.” We knew then that our fates were sealed. We were going to hear about one of Marlow’s strange experiences.
Their reaction to Marlow really shows the crews relationsip. They all are close enough to know just what was going to be said by Marlow after he said what he worked on.
He didn’t have any of that great Roman wine. He couldn’t go ashore. Every once in a while he would pass a military camp lost in the wilderness, like a needle in a haystack. He sailed on through cold, fog, storms, disease, and death.
It's like he (I think marlow) has no purpose. He seems poor because he can't afford great Roman wine and he's just sailing around until someone needs help.
became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth.
Just to come over to the origional text, it seems much more wordy. There's more words to add detail
We were all lost in our own thoughts, up for nothing but sitting and staring.
The paragraph above sets the scene or vibe of what it's like to be on the sailboat. He explained all the crew members, what they did, and how close they got
There was no wind a
Wherever they are, they are stuck at sea