A two-hundred-mile tramp inland brought me to the Central Station, where I learned that my steamer was at the bottom of the river. The manager was a common trader with nothing within him; he inspired uneasiness, and that was all. He told me the repairs would take three months. A young aristocrat with a forked beard, the brickmaker, pumped me for information, believing I had influence in Europe. In his room I saw a small sketch in oils of a draped woman, blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister. He spoke of Kurtz, the chief of the Inner Station, as an emissary of pity and science and progress, and he plainly suspected me of belonging to the same new gang of virtue. I wanted rivets to mend my steamer. What I got instead was the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and talk.