yet Marlow adds that conquest is never pretty and usually involves the powerful taking land from those who look different and are less powerful Conquest, Marlow says, is only by the ideas them, ideas that are so beautiful men bow down before them. Th practice of conquest and colonialism is always ruthless. But the noble idea motivating conquest, such as civilizing the savages, can be so beautiful it hides the ruthlessness even from the conquerors. Marlow then reminds the other men that he once served as captain of a freshwater riverboat, and begins to tell his story. As a young boy, he had a passion for maps and unknown places. As he grew older many of places become known, and many he visited himself Yet Africa still fascinated him, especially its mighty river, the Congo. After years of ocean voyages in which he had "always went by [his] own road and on [his] own legs," Marlow asks his aunt to use her influence he him get a job as a steamship operator for the Company, a continental European trading concern in Africa. instead Marlow makes it