How is Darwin described at the end of the novel? What does he wish?

From the text:

"In the afternoons I re-explored the town, trying to find some trace of the past, some ancient layer or deposit beneath this new city rebuilt of suburbs and supermarkets, shopping malls and overpasses. The shoebox houses on their stork-stilts had largely gone: stout, squat homes hugged the ground everywhere, built out of bricks that no amount of monsoonal huffing and puffing would bring down."

"I knew no-one in this rebuilt town, but wanted someone—anyone—to know that a Great Man had died, whatever the crimes he felt he had committed."