Like the previous few posts i agree that this chapter is much much more interesting than the first, and i found myself breezing through the pages at a quicker rate than i had in the first chapter. This may be because there is more suspense, mystery, and action then there was before. Also there was less of Marlow's personal thoughts and rambling descriptions about landscapes that he could explain in one sentence rather than a whole page.
All this time while reading i think to myself why doesn't Marlow just turn around and go back to England? He hates and fears the landscape with all of it's inhabitants, he gets attacked, his boat has sank once already, and he can barely navigate on this shallow, and at times narrow river because of a dense fog covering everything. The answer is simply money. This long and dangerous journey on the river is risked to find Kurtz, and discover his secret to making a profit in the center of "the heart of darkness".
Marlow's view of the natives begins to show more in this passage. He often views them as wild beasts that go around "leaping and spinning", and eating each other in their primitive world that has long been cut off from the rest of the civilized world. Marlow is astonished when he begins to think that he may have something in common with them as being a human. During the battle on the boat Marlow's belief is backed when the natives start to attack with bows and arrows as the pilgrims fire back on them with the more technologically advanced Winchesters. Not even his helmsman is smart enough to Marlow to concentrate long enough to keep the boat from snagging on the river bottom during the attack.
Tyler, I too found this chapter to be much more interesting than the previous one. I also could see Marlow's views of the natives changing quickly as he spent more time with the other men on the boat. I had wondered in chapter one how long he would "act" in a naive state, before realizing who these prisoners were, but I felt once he found that he was human like these men he was wishing that he could return to the original innocence he had once been in. He may have also regrettejd getting back on the ship to further continue his journey.
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