Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary

by Joseph Conrad

  Monday. 28th

  Left camp at 6.30 after breakfasting with Heche–

  Road at first hilly. Then walking along the ridges of hill chains with valleys on both sides.–The country more open and there is much more trees31 growing in large clumps in the ravines.–

  Passed Nzungi and camped 11h on the right bank of Ngoma. A rapid little river with rocky bed. Village on a hill to the right.–

  [Untitled sketch. Marked: ‘Camp, Luasi, River, Ridge, Wooded valleys, Nzungi, Ngoma River, Camp.’ Underneath: ‘General direction ENE / Distance–14 miles.’]

  No sunshine. Gloomy cold day. Squalls.

  Tuesday–29th

  Left camp at 7h after a good night’s rest. Continuous ascent; rather easy at first.–Crossed wooded ravines and the river Lunzadi by a very decent bridge–

  At 9h met Mr Louette escorting a sick agent of the Comp[an]y back to Matadi–Looking very well–Bad news from up the river–All the steamers disabled. One wrecked.32–Country wooded–At 10.30 camped at Inkissi.

  [Untitled sketch. Marked: ‘Ngoma, Lunzadi River, Met Mr Louette, Inkissi River, Camp.’ Underneath: ‘General direction ENE / Dist[an]ce 15 miles.’]

  Sun visible at 6.30. Very warm day.–

  29th

  Inkissi River very rapid, is about 100 yards broad–Passage in canoes.–Banks wooded very densely and valley of the river rather deep but very narrow.–

  Today did not set the tent but put up in gov[ernmen]t shimbek.33

  Zanzibari in charge–Very obliging.–Met ripe pineapple for the first time.–

  On the road today passed a skeleton tied-up to a post. Also white man’s grave–No name. Heap of stones in the form of a cross.

  Health good now–

  Wednesday–30th.

  Left at 6 am intending to camp at Kinfumu–Two hours sharp walk brought me to Nsona na Nsefe–Market–½ hour after Harou arrived very ill with billious [sic] attack and fever.–Laid him down in gov[ernmen]t shimbek–Dose of Ipeca.34 Vomiting bile in enormous quantities. At 11h gave him 1 gramme of quinine and lots of hot tea. Hot fit ending in heavy perspiration. At 9h p.m. put him in hammock and started for Kinfumu–Row with carriers35 all the way. Harou suffering much through the jerks of the hammock. Camped at a small stream.–

  At 4h Harou better. Fever gone.–

  [Untitled sketch. Marked: ‘Sward, A remarkable conical mountain bearing NE visible from here, Wood Lulufu River, Open, Wood, Stream, Nsona a Nsefe, Grass, Camp, Wooded.’ Underneath: ‘General direction NEbyE½E–/ Distance 13 miles–’]

  Up till noon, sky clouded and strong NW wind very chilling. From 1h pm to 4h pm sky clear and very hot day. Expect lots of battles with carriers to-morrow–Had them all called and made a speech which they did not understand.36 They promise good behaviour

  Thursday–31st

  Left at 6h–Sent Harou ahead and followed in ½ an hour.–Road presents several sharp ascents and a few others easier but rather long. Notice in places sandy surface soil instead of hard clay as heretofore; think however that the layer of sand is not very thick and that the clay would be found under it. Great difficulty in carrying Harou.–Too heavy. Bother! Made two long halts to rest the carriers. Country wooded in valleys and on many of the ridges.

  [Sketch: ‘Section of to-day’s road.’ Sketch marked: ‘Camp, Nkenghe, Kinfumu River, Congo, Kinzilu River, Luila River, and NE½E.’]

  At 2.30 pm reached Luila at last and camped on right bank.–Breeze from SW

  General direction of march about NE½E

  Distance e[a]st[war]d–16 miles

  Congo very narrow and rapid. Kinzilu rushing in. A short distance up from the mouth fine waterfall.–

  –Sun rose red–From 9h a.m. infernally hot day.–

  Harou very little better.

  Self rather seedy. Bathed.

  Luila about 60 feet wide. Shallow

  Friday–1st of August 1890

  Left at 6.30 am after a very indifferently passed night–Cold, Heavy mists–Road in long ascents and sharp dips all the way to Mfumu Mbé–

  After leaving there a long and painful climb up a very steep hill; then a long descent to Mfumu Koko where a long halt was made.

  Left at 12.30pm–towards Nselemba. Many ascents–The aspect of the country entirely changed–Wooded hills with openings.–Path almost all the afternoon thro[ugh] a forest of light trees with dense undergrowth.–

  After a halt on a wooded hillside reached Nselemba at 4h 10m pm.

  [Untitled sketch of day’s march. Marked: ‘Camp, Mfumu Mbe, Koko, Stream, Stream, Mostly Wooded, Stream, Nselemba, and Camp.’]

  Put up at gov[ernmen]t shanty.–

  Row between the carriers and a man stating himself in gov[ernmen]t employ, about a mat.–Blows with sticks raining hard–Stopped it. Chief came with a youth about 13 suffering from gunshot wound in the head. Bullet entered about an inch above the right eyebrow and came out a little inside the roots of the hair, fairly in the middle of the brow in a line with the bridge of the nose–Bone not damaged apparently. Gave him a little glycerine to put on the wound made by the bullet on coming out.

  Harou not very well. Mosquitos–Frogs–Beastly. Glad to see the end of this stupid tramp. Feel rather seedy.

  Sun rose red–Very hot day–Wind S[ou]th.

  General direction of march–NEbyN

  Distance about 17 miles

  Appendix: Author’s Note

  The three stories in this volume1 lay no claim to unity of artistic purpose.2 The only bond between them is that of the time in which they were written. They belong to the period immediately following the publication of the Nigger of the ‘Narcissus,’ and preceding the first conception of Nostromo,3 two books which, it seems to me, stand apart and by themselves in the body of my work. It is also the period during which I contributed to ‘Maga;’4 a period dominated by Lord Jim and associated in my grateful memory with the late Mr William Blackwood’s5 encouraging and helpful kindness.

  ‘Youth’ was not my first contribution6 to ‘Maga.’ It was the second. But that story marks the first appearance in the world of the man Marlow, with whom my relations have grown very intimate in the course of years.7 The origins of that gentleman (nobody so far as I know has ever hinted that he was anything but that)–his origins have been the subject of some literary speculation of, I am glad to say, a friendly nature.

  One would think that I am the proper person to throw a light on the matter; but in truth I find that it isn’t so easy. It is pleasant to remember that nobody has charged him with fraudulent purposes or looked down on him as a charlatan; but apart from that he was supposed to be all sorts of things: a clever screen, a mere device, ‘a personator,’ a familiar spirit, a whispering ‘daemon.’8 I myself have been suspected of a mediated plan for his capture.

  That is not so. I made no plans. The man Marlow and I came together in a casual manner of those health-resort acquaintances which sometimes ripen into friendships. This one has ripened. For all his assertiveness in matters of opinion he is not an intrusive person. He haunts my hours of solitude, when, in silence, we lay our heads together in great comfort and harmony; but as we part at the end of a tale I am never sure that it may not be for the last time. Yet I don’t think that either of us would care much to survive the other. In his case, at any rate, his occupation would be gone9 and he would suffer from that extinction, because I suspect him of some vanity in the Solomonian sense.10 Of all my people he’s the one that has never been a vexation to my spirit. A most discreet, understanding man….

  Even before appearing in book-form ‘Youth’ was very well received.11 It lies on me to confess at last, and this is as good a place for it as another, that I have been all my life–all my two lives12–the spoiled adopted child of Great Britain and even of the Empire; for it was Australia that gave me my first command.13 I break out into this declaration not because of a lurking tendency towards megalomania, but, on the contrary, as a man who has no very notable illusions about himself
. I follow the instincts of vain-glory and humility natural to all mankind. For it can hardly be denied that it is not their own deserts that men are most proud of, but rather of their prodigious luck, of their marvellous fortune: of that in their lives for which thanks and sacrifices must be offered on the altars of the inscrutable gods.

  ‘Heart of Darkness’ also received a certain amount of notice from the first; and of its origins this much may be said: it is well known that curious men go prying into all sorts of places (where they have no business) and come out of them with all kinds of spoil. This story, and one other,14 not in this volume, are all the spoil I brought out from the centre of Africa, where, really, I had no sort of business. More ambitious in its scope and longer in the telling, ‘Heart of Darkness’ is quite as authentic in fundamentals as ‘Youth.’ It is, obviously, written in another mood. I won’t characterize the mood precisely, but anybody can see that it is anything but the mood of wistful regret, of reminiscent tenderness.

  One more remark may be added. ‘Youth’ is a feat of memory. It is a record of experience; but that experience, in its facts, in its inwardness and in its outward colouring, begins and ends in myself. ‘Heart of Darkness’ is experience, too; but it is experience pushed a little (and only a very little) beyond the actual facts of the case for the perfectly legitimate, I believe, purpose of bringing it home to the minds and bosoms of the readers. There it was no longer a matter of sincere colouring. It was like another art altogether. That sombre theme had to be given a sinister resonance, a tonality of its own, a continued vibration that, I hoped, would hang in the air and dwell on the ear after the last note had been struck.

  After saying so much there remains the last tale of the book, still untouched. ‘The End of the Tether’ is a story of sea-life in a rather special way; and the most intimate thing I can say of it is this; that having lived that life fully, amongst its men, its thoughts and sensations, I have found it possible, without the slightest misgiving, in all sincerity of heart and peace of conscience, to conceive the existence of Captain Whalley’s personality and to relate the manner of his end. This statement acquires some force from the circumstance that the pages of that story–a fair half of the book–are also the product of experience. That experience belongs (like ‘Youth”s) to the time before I ever thought of putting pen to paper.15 As to its ‘reality,’ that is for the readers to determine. One had to pick up one’s facts here and there. More skill would have made them more real and the whole composition more interesting. But here we are approaching the veiled region of artistic values which it would be improper and indeed dangerous for me to enter. I have looked over the proofs, have corrected a misprint or two, have changed a word or two–and that’s all. It is not very likely that I shall ever read ‘The End of the Tether’ again. No more need be said. It accords best with my feelings to part from Captain Whalley in affectionate silence.

  1917

  J.C.

  NOTES

  1. volume: Heart of Darkness was collected, with ‘Youth’ and ‘The End of the Tether’, in Youth: A Narrative and Two Other Stories (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1902).

  2. unity of artistic purpose: Conrad later revised his view that the volume had ‘no claim to unity’, writing to his American publisher F. N. Doubleday in February 1924: ‘Or take the volume of Youth, which in its component parts presents the three ages of man (for that is what it really is, and I knew very well what I was doing when I wrote “The End of the Tether” to be the last of that trio). I can’t somehow imagine any of those stories taken out of it and bound cheek and jowl with a story from another volume. It is in fact unthinkable’ (Joseph Conrad: Life and Letters, ed. G. Jean-Aubry (London: Heinemann, 1927), vol. II, pp. 338–9).

  3. They belong to the period…Nostromo: That is, roughly from December 1897 to December 1902.

  4. ‘Maga’: A familiar abbreviation for Blackwood’s Magazine, a Tory monthly founded in 1817. It published much of Conrad’s fiction during the period 1898–1902.

  5. Blackwood’s: William Blackwood (1836–1912), grandson of the original publisher, headed the firm from 1879 until his death.

  6. first contribution: The first contribution was ‘Karain: A Memory’, published in the November 1897 issue of Blackwood’s Magazine and collected in Tales of Unrest (1898).

  7. Marlow: In addition to his appearances in ‘Youth’ and Heart of Darkness, Marlow figures in Lord Jim (1900) and Chance (1913).

  8. daemon: An inner or attendant spirit, often associated with the genius of creativity.

  9. his occupation would be gone: Cf. ‘Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone!’, Shakespeare, Othello, III. iii.358.

  10. Solomonian sense: The wise Solomon delivered many aphorisms on the vanity of human wishes (see Proverbs 1–29), although none describing vanity as a ‘vexation’ of the spirit. For this description, Conrad seems rather to echo Ecclesiastes 1:14: ‘I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.’

  11. well received: Some three years before the publication of ‘Youth’ in book form, the critic and man of letters A. T. Quiller-Couch and the novelist Arnold Bennett, who had read the story in Blackwood’s Magazine, praised it in print.

  12. my two lives: That is, as a merchant seaman until 1894 and subsequently as a writer.

  13. my first command: Conrad’s only permanent command was of the Australian-owned barque, the Otago. He joined the ship in Bangkok on 24 January 1888, and arrived in Sydney on 7 May. This protracted voyage to Australia provides the basis for The Shadow-Line, while a later voyage in the Otago, from Australia to Mauritius, lies behind ‘The Smile of Fortune’. Conrad resigned his command at the end of March 1889.

  14. one other: ‘An Outpost of Progress’, written in 1896 and collected in Tales of Unrest (1898).

  15. the pages of that story…pen to paper: If Conrad did indeed submit a short story, ‘The Black Mate’, to a Tit-Bits competition in 1886 (see Chronology), then this statement is not strictly true. Some of his South-East Asian experience that finds its way into ‘The End of the Tether’ belongs to the period immediately following 1886.

  Notes

  Topics adequately covered in a standard desk dictionary are not glossed here. The accompanying map identifies geographical places; where contextual or historical information might be useful it is added here. The Glossary deals with nautical terms. The Riverside Shakespeare (2nd edition, 1997) is used for quotations from Shakespeare’s plays and biblical quotations are from the King James Bible.

  Conrad drew on, and borrowed from, a large number of sources; the notes indicate the most important of these and do not attempt to catalogue all the source materials that he might have used.

  All references to Conrad’s works are to Dent’s Collected Edition of the Works of Joseph Conrad, 22 vols. (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1946–55).

  The notes are numbered for each part; cross-references, unless otherwise indicated, are to the same part.

  Abbreviations

  Glave

  E. J. Glave, In Savage Africa, Or Six Years of Adventure in Congo-Land (New York: Russell, 1892).

  Hochschild

  Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Study of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (London: Macmillan, 1999).

  Kimbrough

  Joseph Conrad: ‘Heart of Darkness’, ed. Robert Kimbrough, Norton Critical Edition, 3rd edn (New York: Norton, 1988).

  Letters

  The Collected Letters of Joseph Conrad, ed. Frederick R. Karl and Laurence Davies, with Owen Knowles (vol. VI), J. H. Stape (vol. VII) and Gene M. Moore (vol. VIII), 8 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983–).

  Sherry

  Norman Sherry, Conrad’s Western World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971).

  Stanley

  Henry Morton Stanley, The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State: A Story of Work and Exploration, 2 vols. (London: Sampson Low, 1885).
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  Watts 1977

  Cedric Watts, Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’: A Critical and Contextual Discussion (Milan: Mursia International, 1977).

  Watts 1995

  ‘The Heart of Darkness’, ed. Cedric Watts, Everyman Edition (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1995).

  Watts 2002

  ‘Heart of Darkness’ and Other Tales, ed. Cedric Watts, Oxford World’s Classics, 2nd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

  HEART OF DARKNESS

  PART I

  1. Nellie: The name of a small yacht owned by Conrad’s friend George Fountaine Weare Hope (né Hopps, 1854–1930), an ex-seaman and company director, with whom Conrad made several excursions along the Thames estuary. Hope owned the Nellie from 1889 to 1892 (Lloyd’s Register, 1889–93), and, given Conrad’s absences from England, these outings took place in 1891.

  2. Gravesend: A town and port on the south bank of the Thames opposite Tilbury Docks, approximately 20 miles (32 kilometres) east of London.

  3. We four: Here and at the opening of ‘Youth’ Conrad recalls convivial excursions on the Thames in 1891 with his friends Hope (see note 1), Edward Gardner Mears (1857–1936), a meat salesman, and William Brock Keen (1861–1941), an accountant. Aside from Keen, all were ex-seamen and at different times in the 1870s had sailed in the Duke of Sutherland.

  4. said somewhere: In the second paragraph of ‘Youth’: ‘We all began life in the merchant service. Between the five of us there was the strong bond of the sea, and also the fellowship of the craft, which no amount of enthusiasm for yachting, cruising and so on can give, since one is only the amusement of life and the other is life itself.’

  5. bones: A familiar term for dominoes, at the time often made of white ivory with black spots.