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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2002

Copyright © Richard Keynes 2002

Richard Keynes asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Dedication

To my mother

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

List of Maps

Prologue

1 The Man who Walks with Henslow

2 The Strange Consequences of Stealing a Whale-Boat

3 Preparations for the Voyage

4 From Plymouth to the Cape Verde Islands

5 Across the Equator to Bahia

6 Rio de Janeiro

7 An Unquiet Trip from Monte Video to Buenos Aires

8 Digging up Fossils in the Cliffs at Bahia Blanca

9 The Return of the Fuegians to Their Homeland

10 First Visit to the Falkland Islands

11 Collecting Around Maldonado

12 A Meeting with General Rosas on the Ride from Patagones to Buenos Aires and Santa Fé

13 The Last of Monte Video

14 Christmas Day at Port Desire, and on to Port St Julian and Port Famine

15 Goodbye to Jemmy Button and Tierra del Fuego

16 Second Visit to the Falkland Islands

17 Ascent of the Rio Santa Cruz

18 Through the Straits of Magellan to Valparaiso

19 Valparaiso and Santiago

20 Chiloe and the Chonos Archipelago

21 The Great Earthquake of 1835 Hits Valdivia and Concepción

22 On Horseback from Santiago to Mendoza, and Back Over the Uspallata Pass

23 A Last Ride in the Andes, from Valparaiso to Copiapó

24 The Wreck of HMS Challenger

25 From Copiapó to Lima

26 The Galapagos Islands

27 Across the Pacific to Tahiti

28 New Zealand

29 Australia

30 Cocos Keeling Islands

31 Mauritius, Cape of Good Hope, St Helena and Ascension Island

32 A Quick Dash to Bahia and Home to Falmouth

33 Harvesting the Evidence

34 Farewell to Robert FitzRoy

Epilogue

Notes

Index

About the Author

Other Books By

About the Publisher

Maps

The Voyage of the Beagle

Geological map of part of North Wales

Tierra del Fuego

Charles’s Eight Principal Inland Expeditions in South America

Port San Julian

The Straits of Magellan

West Coast of Chile

The Galapagos Islands

North and South Keeling Islands

Prologue

In the autobiography written by Charles Darwin near the end of his life for the benefit of his children and descendants,¹ he said:

The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my whole career; yet it depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offering to drive me 30 miles to Shrewsbury, which few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my nose. I have always felt that I owe to the voyage the first real training or education of my mind. I was led to attend closely to several branches of natural history, and thus my powers of observation were improved, though they were already fairly developed.

There is no dispute with Darwin’s own estimate of the importance of the voyage of the Beagle in the subsequent development of his scientific career. He himself provided a classical description of the voyage in his Journal of Researches,2 but his biographers other than Janet Browne have not covered his scientific research on the Beagle in much detail, while Alan Moorehead’s Darwin and the Beagle3 was mainly concerned with the affair as the exciting adventure that it undoubtedly was, and gave a distinctly misleading picture of the relations between Darwin and FitzRoy. The purpose of this book is to retell the whole story, starting from the haphazard events in Tierra del Fuego that led Robert FitzRoy to take the Beagle there again, with a ‘well-educated and scientific person’ as companion. Then it is shown how FitzRoy’s scientist had precisely the right talents to make highly effective use of the array of new scientific facts that were presented to him in South America and in the countries visited by the Beagle homeward bound round the far side of the world. And lastly it is explained how Charles Darwin’s findings on the Beagle soon started him on the path that in due course led him to the discovery of the principle of Natural Selection and of the Origin of Species.

My interest in South America was first aroused in 1951, when I had the good fortune to be invited by Professor Carlos Chagas Filho to be Visiting Reader that summer at the Instituto de Biofisica in Rio de Janeiro. My ignorance about Brazil was profound, but I did know that Professor Chagas had a good supply of electric eels at his laboratory. Moreover, Alan Hodgkin, leader of our group working at the Physiological Laboratory in Cambridge on the mechanism of conduction of the nervous impulse, had just developed an important new technique for recording electrical activity in living cells that I could usefully apply to investigate the properties of what Charles Darwin had described as the ‘wondrous’ organs⁴ in certain fishes that generated their powerful electrical discharges, though he had been puzzled about the manner of their evolution. So I spent two and a half happy months in Rio that summer, successfully unravelling the mystery of how the additive discharge of the electric organ was achieved.⁵ The job complete, and having accumulated a pocketful of cruzeiros in payment for my efforts, I then took the recently established direct flight in a Braniff DC-6 from Rio to Lima over the Mato Grosso and the Andes, and made the first of many journeys to Peru, briefly calling on fellow physiologists in Chile and Argentina on the way home, and getting back to Cambridge for the Michaelmas term at the beginning of October.

In August 1968 I had been visiting a Chilean colleague at Viña del Mar, near Valparaiso, for discussions on a joint study of the biophysics and physiology of giant nerve fibres, and was flying home via Buenos Aires. Here the British Council representative, knowing me to be a member of the Darwin family, asked me whether I had seen the Darwin collection belonging to Dr Armando Braun Menendez. I had not previously taken any particular interest in the voyage of the Beagle, but fortunately the Argentinian professor who was showing me round knew Dr Braun Menendez, and took me to call on him. His impressive collection of papers and books was concerned with the exploration of the southern seas, and the Darwin item consisted of two little portfolios of pencil drawings and watercolours made on board the Beagle by Conrad Martens, of whom I knew vaguely as the second of the ship’s official artists. I opened one of the portfolios to find the picture labelled by Martens as ‘Slinging the monkey. Port Desire – Decr 25, 1833’, which portrayed the ship’s crew engaged on the Royal Navy’s traditional celebration of Christmas Day, with the Beagle and Adventure anchored in the background. The picture bore the initials ‘RF’ at the top right-hand corner, though the Beagle’s Captain, Robert FitzRoy, evidently did not approve of every detail, because Martens had written below: ‘Note. Mainmast of the Beagle a little farther aft – Miz. Mast to rake more’. This graphic document, and others in the portfolios, opened an exciting new window for me on to the voyage of the Beagle, and launched me on an entirely new and rewarding field of part-time study.

On my return home, I consulted Nora Barlow, my godmother and mentor, and like my mother a granddaughter of Charles Darwin. Through her pioneer editions of Charles Darwin’s Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. “Beagle” (1933), Charles Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle (1945), Darwin’s Autobiography (1958), his Ornithological Notes (1963), and Darwin and Henslow: The Growth of an Idea. Letters 1831–1860 (1967), Nora Barlow was the true founder of what is often known nowadays as the Darwin Industry. Her wisdom and kindness had no bounds, and my debt to her is immense.

With Lady Barlow’s encouragement, I set about assembling a catalogue of all the extant drawings and paintings made by Conrad Martens during his initial journey from England to Montevideo, where on 3 August 1833 he joined the Beagle as a replacement for the ship’s first official artist, Augustus Earle, who had been taken ill. Then I listed the drawings and paintings that he made in Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, the Falkland Islands, the Straits of Magellan, Chiloe and around Valparaiso, until in December 1834, there being no longer any space for him on the Beagle, he set sail for Australia. Here he established himself in Sydney as the leading artist of the period, and at the same time continued to paint developments of his Beagle drawings in watercolour, some of which he sold to Darwin, and others to Robert FitzRoy to be engraved as illustrations for the published accounts of the voyage. Selections from this material were reproduced in the first book that I edited, The Beagle Record (1979), to illustrate some of the places and people actually seen by Darwin and FitzRoy in South America. For the most immediate written records, I drew upon the vivid accounts in letters from Darwin to his sisters and to his mentor in Cambridge, Professor John Stevens Henslow, and also in what he himself called his ‘commonplace journal’, but which will be referred to here as the ‘Beagle Diary’ to distinguish it from his subsequently published Journal of Researches. In addition I made use of FitzRoy’s published account,⁶ his few surviving diaries, and some of his letters.

Fifty years after its publication, Nora Barlow’s edition of The Beagle Diary had long since gone out of print. Darwin’s splendid description of his daily life on the Beagle and ashore, sent home at intervals to his family in Shrewsbury, is one of the major classics of scientific exploration. My next task was therefore to produce a new version revised according to modern standards of transcription, with Nora Barlow’s very rare errors put right, and a new introduction and footnotes. This was published in 1988, and has recently been reprinted in paperback.⁷

Two substantial Darwin manuscripts still remained unpublished at the Cambridge University Library, namely the Zoology Notes⁸ and the Geology Notes⁹,¹⁰ made on the Beagle. Apart from a brief account of some observations made in Edinburgh in 1827,¹¹ these were his first scientific writings, containing a detailed record of all that he observed and collected during the four-and-three-quarter years of the voyage. Their importance is that here, and in his letters to Henslow,¹² it is possible to trace the first beginnings of Darwin’s thinking about the evolution not only of the animal kingdom but also of the face of the earth.

After retiring in 1986 from administration and teaching in Cambridge, I had more time at my disposal, so in addition to visiting the marine laboratory at Roscoff in Brittany every autumn for continuation of some experimental work, I embarked on a transcription¹³ of Darwin’s Zoology Notes and Specimen Lists. They comprise some hundreds of quarto pages of notes, with descriptions of 1500 specimens preserved in Spirits of Wine, and some 3500 not in Spirits. In order to identify the insects and marine invertebrates collected by Darwin, I needed a great deal of help from experts on their taxonomy, but the vertebrates had mostly been covered in the five parts of The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle published in 1839–1843.¹⁴ Completion of the task has kept me busy for about ten years, but it has now at last been finished. The Geology Notes have not as yet been transcribed and published, occupying as they do around four times as many pages as the Zoology Notes. However, articles by Secord,¹⁵ Herbert¹⁶ and Rhodes¹⁷ have discussed them helpfully, as has Janet Browne’s account of the voyage.¹⁸ Moreover, photocopies of the MSS are available at the Cambridge University Library for study by anyone well practised at reading Darwin’s reasonably legible handwriting.

If any of my readers feel that they would like to become better acquainted with one of their forebears, I can recommend the course that I adopted thanks to that chance introduction in Buenos Aires in 1968. When you have transcribed several hundred thousand words of his writings, concerned with places a few of which you have seen for yourself not too greatly changed 160 years later, you may once in a while almost feel that you are talking to him. But it helps to be lucky enough to have a forebear who was as friendly to all men, and as constructively critical and honest about his own ideas, as Charles Darwin always was.

Richard Darwin KeynesCambridge, July 2001

CHAPTER 1

The Man who Walks with Henslow

Charles Robert Darwin was born at The Mount, Shrewsbury, on 12 February 1809, the second son and fifth child of Dr Robert Waring Darwin.

His genetic make-up in the male line was strongly scientific, although his father combined a position as one of the leading physicians in the Midlands not with science, but with acting widely as a private financial adviser to the gentry of the region. Charles would later have high praise for his father’s powers of observation, and for his sympathy with his patients, but considered that his mind was not truly scientific. Robert’s wealth was nevertheless as valuable an inheritance for his son as a gene for science, not only paying for Charles’s board and lodging on the Beagle when he sailed as an unofficial scientist and companion to the Captain, but also enabling him to pursue a scientific career single-mindedly for the rest of his life, without ever having to earn his living.

However, his grandfathers, Dr Erasmus Darwin of Lichfield and Josiah Wedgwood I the potter, who built a model factory at Etruria near Stoke-on-Trent, were two of the leading scientists and technologists of their time. Both Fellows of the Royal Society, they were also founding members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, which played the principal intellectual part in the establishment of the Industrial Revolution in England. Erasmus Darwin¹⁹ was primarily a practising physician, but his prodigious energies overflowed in many other directions, as a poet, an inventor of mechanical devices of various kinds, a pioneer in meteorology and in the description of photosynthesis, and not least as author of an immense medical treatise entitled Zoonomia,* and of a fine poem, The Temple of Nature, in which as we shall see he made an important contribution to his grandson’s Theory of Evolution. Josiah Wedgwood I made radical improvements in the handling of china clay, founded a famous pottery, and developed a canal system for the transport of his products. The chemists of Europe came to him for their glassware and retorts, and in due course his son Josiah Wedgwood II provided his nephews Erasmus and Charles with fireproof china dishes manufactured at the pottery, and an industrial thermometer for their private laboratory.

Charles recorded that at a very early age he had a passion for collecting ‘all sorts of things, shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals … which leads a man to be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso or a miser’. Throughout his life he also exercised a scientifically useful taste for making careful lists, whether of his various collections, of the game that he had killed, of books that he had read or intended to read, of the pros and cons of marriage, or of his household accounts.

During his formal education at Shrewsbury School, where like his elder brother Erasmus he boarded for some years, he was taught mainly classics, ancient geography and history, and a little mathematics, but there was no place for science in the curriculum. However, their grandfathers’ strong interest in chemistry managed to break through in both boys, first in Erasmus and then in Charles, and together they set up in an outhouse at home what they grandly called their ‘Laboratory’. Here they could pursue a hobby fashionable at the time in the upper classes for investigating the composition of various domestic materials, sometimes after purification of their constituents by crystallisation, though they were seldom able to extract sufficient funds from their father to provide any really sophisticated chemical apparatus. For a while the application of elementary crystallography to his collection of rocks and stones was one of Charles’s favourite occupations.

In 1822 Erasmus left school, and was sent to study at Cambridge, where he wrote a helpful series of letters to Charles with detailed instructions for further experiments. This encouraged Charles to examine the effect on different substances of heating them over an open flame, sometimes with a blow-pipe at the gaslight in his bedroom at school, earning him the nickname of ‘Gas’ and the strong disapproval of the headmaster. Over this period, Charles delighted in devising simple instruments for performance of his tests, and under the tuition of Erasmus served a useful initial apprenticeship in the art of scientific experimentation.

Robert Darwin now decided that Erasmus should proceed from Cambridge to Edinburgh University as he had done himself in order to take an M.B. degree, and that Charles should leave school at the age of sixteen and accompany his brother to Edinburgh in October 1825 with the same object. The plan did not quite work out, for although Erasmus did eventually pass the Cambridge M.B. exam in 1828, his poor health led to his retirement to London as a gentleman of leisure, and he never practised. Charles, on the other hand, having signed up for the traditional courses on anatomy, surgery, the practice of physic, and materia medica, the remedial substances used in medicine, which his father and grandfather had taken in their day, soon found that many of the lectures were now sadly out of date, and that conditions in the dissecting room and on two occasions in the operating room were so highly distasteful that he felt unable to continue on the course. It was not until the end of his second year that he was at last able to confess to his father his determination to abandon medicine as a career, but in the meantime Edinburgh provided other avenues to fill his time that assisted materially in his development as a scientist.

During his first year at Edinburgh, Charles took regular walks with Erasmus on the shores of the Firth of Forth, where he made his first acquaintance with some of the marine animals that later occupied him so intensively on the Beagle. At the same time he maintained his interest in ornithology, and arranged to have lessons on stuffing birds from a ‘blackamoor’ who had been taught taxidermy by the naturalist Charles Waterton. He and Erasmus also revived their knowledge of chemistry and related areas of geology by attending the stimulating lectures and demonstrations given by Thomas Charles Hope, Professor of Chemistry in the university from 1799 to 1843.

In 1826, Erasmus had remained at home, and Charles was left to fend for himself. He attended Robert Jameson’s popular series of extracurricular lectures covering meteorology, hydrography, mineralogy, geology, botany and zoology, but said many years later that ‘they were incredibly dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology or in any way to study the science.’ Although it was true that Jameson’s style of lecturing did not inspire his audience, Charles’s copy of Jameson’s Manual of Mineralogy is heavily annotated, and provided him with a valuable source of practical information for his subsequent geological studies. He also benefited from exposure to the critical clash between Hope’s Huttonian views and Jameson’s preference for the Wernerian doctrine,* soon coming down firmly on Hope’s side. In any case, any temporary prejudice that Charles may have had against geology did not last long, and in due course was banished by Professors Henslow and Sedgwick after his arrival at Cambridge.

In November, Charles became a member of the Plinian Society, named after Pliny the Elder, author of a famous account of the natural history of ancient Rome, at which a small group of undergraduates would meet informally for discussions of natural history or sometimes to go on collecting expeditions, but from participation in which the university professors were traditionally banned. He was also taken as a guest from time to time to the august Wernerian Society, whose membership was restricted to graduates, and whose proceedings were published in a series of learned memoirs. At a meeting of the Wernerian Society on 16 December 1826, he listened attentively to a paper on the buzzard in which the great American ornithologist and artist John James Audubon, who had recently arrived in Edinburgh to find an engraver for the first ten plates of his Birds of America, exploded the currently fashionable view of the extraordinary power of smelling possessed by vultures. When nine years later Charles was making observations in Chile on the behaviour of condors, he was happy to find himself in agreement with Audubon’s conclusions.

The senior member of the Plinian Society was at that time Robert Grant, then aged thirty-three and a mere lecturer on invertebrate animals at an extramural anatomy school, who had graduated as a doctor in 1814, travelled extensively on the Continent, and studied in Paris with the zoologist and anatomist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832). Soon Charles was taken by Grant to collect a variety of animals along the shores in the neighbourhood of Leith, and to go out with fishermen on the waters of the Firth of Forth. On these trips he was sometimes accompanied by another medical student, John Coldstream, who later advised him helpfully about fishing nets. Grant also taught Charles how to dissect specimens under sea water with the aid of a crude single-lens microscope, and gave him a valuable training in marine biology, with an emphasis on the importance of developmental studies on invertebrates, which was taken up with enthusiasm by a pupil who all too quickly outshone his master.

Among Grant’s favourite subjects for research were the not very glamorous ‘moss animals’ of genus Flustra that encrusted the tidal rocks in bunches like a miniature seaweed, and which consisted of large numbers of microscopic polyps whose precise relationship with one another was unclear. There had long been controversy as to whether they should be classified as animals or plants, and the Swedish botanist and founder of the system of binomial nomenclature of species Carl Linnaeus (1707–78) had christened them Zoophyta, an intermediate form. By the beginning of the nineteenth century it had been widely but not yet universally accepted that these organisms were indeed sedentary aquatic animals, which formed colonies often containing millions of individual polyps or zooids with specialised functions. In 1830 the phylum* to which they belonged was termed Polyzoa by J. Vaughan Thompson, and nowadays the animals are classified as Bryozoa.

Charles set to work on the reproductive particles of Flustra and other marine animals, and to his great excitement confirmed Grant’s observation that the eggs of Flustra were coated with fine cilia, hairlike vibrating organs whose coordinated movements endowed the ova with some degree of motility. He also noted that the ‘sea peppercorns’ often found attached to old shells were not as previously assumed buttons of seaweed, but were the eggs of the marine leech Pontobdella muricata. This he duly reported in his first scientific paper, presented in a talk to the Plinian Society on 27 March 1827; but he had been seriously put out when three days earlier Grant read a long memoir to the Wernerian Society that included his pupil’s findings without any proper acknowledgement of their source. What had happened was later described by Charles’s daughter Henrietta:

When he was at Edinburgh he found out that the spermatozoa [ova] of things that grow on seaweed move. He rushed instantly to Prof. Grant who was working on the same subject to tell him, thinking, he wd be delighted with so curious a fact. But was confounded on being told that it was very unfair of him to work at Prof. G’s subject and in fact that he shd take it ill if my Father published it. This made a deep impression on my father and he has always expressed the strongest contempt for all such little feelings – unworthy of searchers after truth.²⁰

At around the same time, as Charles recalled long afterwards, he had a significant conversation with Grant:

He one day, when we were walking together, burst forth in high admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I listened in silent astonishment, and as far as I can judge, without any effect on my mind. I had previously read the Zoonomia of my grandfather, in which similar views are maintained, but without producing any effect on me. Nevertheless it is probable that the hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding them under a different form in my Origin of Species. At this time I admired greatly the Zoonomia; but on reading it a second time after an interval of ten or fifteen years, I was much disappointed, the proportion of speculation being so large to the facts given.²¹

When in 1793 Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de Lamarck was appointed as Professor of the ‘inferior animals’ in Paris, he earned good marks for renaming them in a less uncomplimentary fashion as ‘invertebrates’, i.e. animals without backbones. He also came up with new and valid reasons for believing in the evolution of new species. But he then spoiled his case by endowing all animals with a special power to interact directly with their environment and acquire ever greater complexity or perfection, supposing for example that the length of a giraffe’s neck was the result of the animal constantly reaching up for food, or that the length of an anteater’s nose and loss of its teeth resulted from perpetual sniffing into anthills, and was inherited over many generations. In the absence of any good evidence for such an inheritance of acquired characteristics, the term ‘Lamarckian’ soon had pejorative connotations. The occasion to which Charles referred was possibly the first when Grant revealed his extreme views on transmutation in invertebrates, and metamorphoses in extinct fossils. At the end of 1827 Grant became the first Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at University College London,* and his strongly Lamarckian approach was more widely disseminated. He held this post until his retirement in 1874, and though he was reported by Charles’s friend Frederick William Hope in 1834 to be ‘working away at the Mollusca & Infusoria publishing at a great rate’, in 1867 he was still teaching a defunct 1830s zoology in a frayed swallow-tail coat. Charles later noted that ‘he did nothing more in science – a fact which has always been inexplicable to me’. Grant’s excessively radical attitude, coupled with the disillusionment stemming from their falling out that March, may help to explain why their subsequent relations were never close, and there is no suggestion that Charles was ever subjected to the intimate approaches from Grant that may eventually have led to the nervous breakdown suffered by another of his students, John Coldstream.

Robert Darwin was far from pleased with Charles for giving up medicine, and told him angrily, and as Charles thought somewhat unjustly, ‘You care for nothing but shooting, dogs and rat-catching and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.’²² After careful consideration, Robert decided that the only alternative for which there were several precedents in the Darwin and Wedgwood families would be for Charles to go up to Cambridge to take an ordinary Arts degree as the first step towards becoming an Anglican clergyman. In order to fulfil in due course the requirements for entry into the university, he had to brush up the Latin and Greek that he was supposed to have learnt at school, and a private tutor was therefore engaged for the last eight months of 1827. The period was not a very happy one for Charles, though he managed to escape to Uncle Josiah Wedgwood’s house at Maer Hall in Staffordshire, seven miles from Stoke-on-Trent, for at least the start of the shooting season, and made his first and only visit to France to collect his youngest Wedgwood cousins from Paris. But he did not record whether he also fitted in a visit to Cuvier’s famous Musée d’Histoire Naturelle.

Charles duly matriculated at Christ’s College, Cambridge, in January 1828. Here he quickly fell in with a new circle of young men from his own background and sharing his own tastes, one of whom described him at the time as ‘rather thick set in physical frame & of the most placid, unpretending & amiable nature’. Some years later, Charles advised his eldest son William at school:

You will surely find that the greatest pleasure in life is in being beloved; & this depends almost more on pleasant manners, than on being kind with grave & gruff manners. You are almost always kind & only want the more easily acquired external appearance. Depend upon it, that the only way to acquire pleasant manners is to try to please everybody you come near, your school-fellows, servants & everyone. Do, my own dear Boy, sometimes think over this, for you have plenty of sense & observation.²³

Charles’s own amiability and good relations with the rest of the world at every level were always among his most outstanding characteristics, and he had a true genius for friendship.

His new acquaintances included a number of schoolmates from Shrewsbury, and his cousin Hensleigh Wedgwood from Staffordshire, who had earlier seen a lot of Charles’s brother Erasmus in Cambridge. By far his closest friend to begin with was a cousin from the other side of the family, William Darwin Fox, the only son of Robert Darwin’s cousin Samuel Fox, who was then in his third year at Christ’s and due to become a parson in Cheshire. William Darwin Fox’s abiding passion, just as Charles’s had been in his childhood, was for the collection of exotic natural history specimens that filled every cubic inch of his rooms. He took great pleasure in shooting and riding, and kept two dogs named Fan and Sappho at Christ’s, about whose exploits, matching that of Charles’s Mr Dash at Shrewsbury, they had a regular correspondence. Fox encouraged Charles to take an interest in both art and music, and together they visited print shops and the Fitzwilliam Museum, and attended concerts of choral works in college chapels. Charles later joined a musical set headed by another good friend, John Maurice Herbert.²⁴ They went regularly to King’s College chapel to hear the anthem sung, and occasionally Charles hired the choristers to perform in his rooms. But as Herbert soon discovered, and as he himself freely admitted, Charles’s pleasure in listening was not in fact accompanied by a good musical ear. The interests of the group were wide-ranging, and extended at one time to the formation of the ‘Glutton’ or ‘Gourmet’ Club at which they dined when not eating in hall, and consumed a range of animals that did not usually appear on the menu. The club was finally brought to an end by an attempt to eat an old brown owl whose flavour was considered by all to have been ‘indescribable’. One wonders what the club would have made of some of the weird dishes later consumed in an experimental spirit by Charles on the Beagle.

The principal and most time-consuming occupation to which Charles was introduced by Fox was collecting and learning to identify beetles. Charles recalled later:

No pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so much eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as collecting beetles. It was the mere passion for collecting, for I did not dissect them and rarely compared their characters with published descriptions, but got them named anyhow. I will give a proof of my zeal: one day, on tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles and seized one in each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as well as the third one. I was very successful in collecting and invented two new methods; I employed a labourer to scrape during the winter, moss off old trees and place [it] in a large bag, and likewise to collect the rubbish at the bottom of the barges in which reeds are brought from the fens, and thus I got some very rare species. No poet ever felt more delight at seeing his first poem published than I did at seeing in Stephen’s Illustrations of British Insects the magic words, “captured by Charles Darwin, Esq.”²⁵

Public interest in natural history was at that time about to expand hugely, but few people pursued the new hobby with the passion, practical competence and competitiveness displayed by Fox and Charles. After breakfasting together daily, they scoured the fields and ditches closest to them at the ‘backs’ of the colleges, and the countryside further to the south of Cambridge, often accompanied by a bagman to carry their heavier equipment and their captures. When this man had learnt just what they were after, he would also collect for them when they were otherwise occupied. Returning to Charles’s rooms they would go through his reference books, from Lamarck to Stephens, to identify any rarities they had secured, and pin them out on a board for all to admire. On one such occasion after Charles had, after a ‘famous chace’ in the Fens, caught an especially rare beetle, he was pleased when Leonard Jenyns, vicar of Swaffham Bulbeck, and one of his principal collecting rivals in Cambridge, quickly came round to inspect it. Some years later, it was Jenyns who identified the fishes brought back by Charles in the Beagle.

When in June 1828 Fox went down from Cambridge, Charles felt himself ‘dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects’. During the next three years, before the departure of the Beagle, he and Fox exchanged frequent letters, mainly concerned with entomology. They corresponded regularly during the voyage, and continued to keep closely in touch on family matters until Fox’s death in 1880. On sending Fox a copy of The Descent of Man in 1870, in which he had finally faced up to bringing Man into the picture, Charles added: ‘It is very delightful to me to hear that you, my very old friend, like my other books.’

In the summer of 1828 Charles and a number of friends went to Barmouth on the coast of Wales as a reading party that was intended to brush up their mathematics, but in the event became more concerned with entomology. Even the unfortunate Herbert, who was severely lame thanks to a deformed foot, was dragged to the tops of the hills in search of beetles, though Charles made up for it by helping to carry him down. The enthusiasm and thoroughness with which Charles pursued his beetles had already become a legend among his contemporaries.

At the beginning of the Michaelmas term, Charles moved into the rooms at Christ’s in which he lived for the next three years. A former occupant of the set had been the eighteenth-century theologian William Paley (1743–1805). Perhaps his influence still lingered there, for although Charles devoted very little of his time to theology, he said afterwards that he had greatly appreciated the clarity of Paley’s language and the strength of his logic, and regarded his books on Evidences of Christianity and Moral Philosophy as the only part of the academic course which had helped to educate his mind. However, he now had plenty else to do, for he kept a horse in Cambridge for riding, and having persuaded his father and sisters to provide the funds for a powerful double-barrelled gun with percussion caps, could practise aiming it at a lighted candle in his rooms. His beetles were never neglected, and towards the end of his period in Cambridge he took up once more the study of the inner workings of living cells by microscopy that he had begun in Edinburgh with Robert Grant. This was made possible by a gift from a generous and initially anonymous donor, who later turned out to be Herbert, of the latest compound microscope designed by Henry Coddington, a mathematics tutor at Trinity.

Unquestionably the most important event in Charles’s life while he was at Cambridge was his friendship with the Revd Professor John Stevens Henslow, of whom he had been told by his brother Erasmus, and to one of whose Friday evening soirées for scientifically inclined undergraduates and dons he was taken by Fox in 1828. Henslow had first been Professor of Mineralogy in Cambridge for five years, and then became Professor of Botany from 1827 to 1861. He and Adam Sedgwick, the Revd Professor of Geology and Senior Proctor in the University, had founded the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1819. Together with William Whewell, polymath and later Master of Trinity, Charles Babbage, the designer of calculating engines, and George Peacock, mathematician and Professor of Astronomy, Sedgwick and Henslow were the leading figures in the development of scientific research and teaching in the university during the first half of the nineteenth century. Henslow’s wide-ranging lectures on botany, covering every aspect of the chemistry and biology of plants as well as the essential minimum of their taxonomic classification by Linnaeus, were attended annually by sixty or seventy undergraduates and several professors. The courses included field excursions, sometimes on foot or else in stagecoaches or on a barge drifting down the river to Ely, punctuated by talks on the variety of plants, insects, shells and fossils that had been collected. In the late spring there was always a trip to Gamlingay heath, twenty miles to the west of Cambridge, where rare plants and animals were to be found, and which ended with a convivial social gathering at a country inn. Charles signed up for these activities in 1829, 1830 and 1831. With at least some of Sedgwick’s lectures that he also attended in 1831, they constituted the only formal instruction in science that he received at Cambridge.

Speaking of the last two terms at the university after he had passed his Bachelor of Arts examination in January 1831, tenth in the list of candidates who did not seek honours, Charles wrote of Henslow in his Autobiography:

I took long walks with him on most days, so that I was called by some of the dons ‘the man who walks with Henslow’; and in the evening I was very often asked to join his family dinner. His knowledge was great in botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. His strongest taste was to draw conclusions from long-continued minute observations. His judgement was excellent, and his whole mind well-balanced; but I do not suppose that anyone would say that he possessed much original genius.

It is true that by modern standards Charles would not be regarded as having had an orthodox or adequate scientific training. But by the standards of 1831, and remembering the contacts with Grant and the lectures that he had attended in Edinburgh, he was by then as well educated in natural history as any student in the country. And although he had not passed any exams in the subject, he had greatly impressed some of the most eminent scientists in Cambridge with his practical ability as a collector, and with the high quality and purposefulness of his enquiring mind. ‘What a fellow that Darwin is for asking questions,’ said Henslow.

At around the same time Charles read two books that ‘stirred up in me a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Natural Science’. One was the classical account by the German naturalist, geophysicist, meteorologist and geographer Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) about his travels through the Brazilian rain forest to the Andes and beyond with the botanist Aimé Bonpland (1773–1858).²⁶ The second was the recent book by the astronomer and physicist John Herschel (1792–1871) on the study of natural science.²⁷ Charles insisted on inflicting long readings from Humboldt on his friends, and worked out plans for an expedition to the Canary Islands in July to inspect the volcanic cone of the Pico de Teide on Tenerife, whose summit had been closely inspected by Humboldt in 1799 on his way out to South America. Some of the requirements of his plan were tiresome to meet, such as taking ‘intensely stupid’ lessons in Spanish, though he was not to know how useful they would prove to have been when later on he was riding with gauchos across the pampas in Patagonia. A number of prospective participants were enlisted, but on enquiring about the sailing of passenger vessels to the Canaries, Charles found that his planning was already too late, for the boats were scheduled for departures only in June. The trip would therefore have to be postponed to 1832.

It was pointed out by Henslow that such an enterprise would require a basic knowledge of geology. He therefore advised Charles on the purchase in London of the instrument for the measurement of the inclination of rock beds known as a clinometer, and showed him how to use it. Soon Charles could boast from Shrewsbury that ‘I put all the tables in my bedroom at every conceivable angle & direction. I will venture to say I have measured them as accurately as any Geologist going could do.’²⁸

Most significantly of all for Charles’s training as a geologist, Henslow prevailed on Adam Sedgwick to take Charles with him for part of his usual field excursion during the summer vacation. Sedgwick was renowned as a field geologist, skilled at the recognition of regional patterns of strata from details that were strictly local, and in August he was planning to visit North Wales in continuation of a project to describe all the rocks in Great Britain below the Old Red Sandstone.* The first nights of the trip were spent by Sedgwick with the Darwins at Shrewsbury, where he made a great impression, especially on Charles’s sister Susan, often teased by the accusation that ‘anything in coat and trousers from eight years to eighty was fair game to Susan’. Charles had been practising his geology in the neighbourhood, and later related the story of the important scientific lesson that he learnt on that occasion:

Whilst examining an old gravel-pit near Shrewsbury a labourer told me that he had found in it a large worn tropical Volute shell, such as may be seen on the chimney-pieces of cottages; and as he would not sell the shell I was convinced that he had really found it in the pit. I told Sedgwick of the fact, and he at once said (no doubt truly) that it must have been thrown away by someone into the pit; but then added, if really embedded there it would be the greatest misfortune to geology, as it would overthrow all that we know about the superficial deposits of the midland counties. These gravel-beds belonged in fact to the glacial period, and in after years I found in them broken arctic shells. But I was then utterly astonished at Sedgwick not being delighted at so wonderful a fact as a tropical shell being found near the surface in the middle of England. Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.²⁹

Sedgwick had of course appreciated that the shell could not possibly be a genuine find in such a place. His scepticism taught Charles a valuable lesson, and brought home to him the importance of assembling plenty of mutually compatible observations to support any new scientific theory. Thereafter he would keep his mouth tightly shut until sufficient evidence had been accumulated.

Sedgwick’s aim was to follow the line of contact along the Vale of Clwyd between the Carboniferous Limestone cliffs and the Old Red Sandstone, shown in the geological map with ribbons crossing the Vale at several points, starting at Llangollen and finishing at Great Ormes Head on the coast.³⁰ At a quarry near Ruthin they found a possible outcrop of the Old Red, and north of Henllan there was red sand and earth, but Sedgwick was not sure that this established with certainty the nature of the underlying strata. Charles was therefore dispatched on a traverse of his own from St Asaph to Abergele via Betwys-yn-Rhos, crossing a substantial band of Old Red shown on the map. Finding in some places a few loose stones and some reddish soil, he noted: ‘It was in such points as these where the strata have been much disturbed, that I observed the greatest number of bits of Sandstone, but in no place could I find it in situ.’³¹ Near Abergele the soil was indeed ‘very red’, but this he attributed ‘entirely to the very ferruginous [rich in iron] seams in the rock itself, & not to the supposed sandstone beneath it’. That evening he told Sedgwick that there was no true Old Red to be seen, and to the end of his life could remember how pleased his teacher had been with this new evidence that the Vale of Clwyd did not have a complex structure as had been supposed, but was a simple trough-like syncline* resulting from a stretching of the strata. Although his experience of geology in the field was thus limited to just one week, Charles had sat at the feet of a master, and had solved his first problem with conspicuous success.

Geological map of part of North Wales, redrawn by Secord¹⁵ after Greenough,³⁰ with Charles’s route from Llangollen to Penmaenmawr as a dotted line. In the second edition of Greenough’s map, published in 1839, the Old Red Sandstone had disappeared.

Among other sites of geological interest in the Vale were the famous caves in the limestone cliffs at Plas-yn-Cefn, above the River Elwy. Here the owner had excavated vertebrate fossils in the largest cave that included the tooth of a rhinoceros, and there were other bones in the mud. Charles’s imagination was fired by the prospect of making similar discoveries from past worlds in his projected trip to the Canaries, though his hopes were not in fact realised until his arrival in 1832 at the cliffs of Punta Alta in Patagonia. After a week, Charles and Sedgwick separated at Capel Curig in the neighbourhood of Bethesda, and Charles strode on across the central mountains of Wales, steering by map and compass, to join some Cambridge friends at Barmouth.

Reaching home at Shrewsbury on 29 August 1831 after two weeks of shooting with his Uncle Jos at Maer, ‘for at that time I should have thought myself mad to give up the first days of partridge shooting for geology or any other science’, Charles found the fateful letter from Henslow proposing that he should sail on the Beagle. The clock must next be turned back to explain its origin.

CHAPTER 2

The Strange Consequences of Stealing a Whale-Boat

On 25 September 1513 the Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the narrow isthmus joining the two halves of the American continent to discover on the far side the Mar del Sur, later named the Pacific Ocean. The town of Panama was built on the Pacific shore, and became the base for a rapid expansion by the Spaniards. While Hernán Cortés was conquering the Aztec empire in Mexico, Francisco Pizarro was overcoming the Incas in Peru. During the next three hundred years prosperous Spanish colonies were established in the western and southernmost parts of South America, while in the east the Portuguese took over a large area in Brazil.

The English were jealous of their success, but for a long time could only benefit from it by robbery, following the example of Sir Francis Drake when he returned from his circumnavigation in 1580 with a rich cargo of treasures stolen from the Spanish colonies at Queen Elizabeth’s behest. In 1806 Buenos Aires was attacked by a British force, which was successfully repelled, giving the Argentinians the confidence to join the other Spanish colonies in breaking away from Spain. By 1820 they were all independent countries, though not always at peace with one another.

The Hydrographic Office of the Royal Navy, founded in 1795, was initially responsible for looking after the Admiralty’s collection of navigational charts, and of the ‘Remark Books’ about foreign shores and harbours that all naval captains were required to keep. In 1817 the second Hydrographer, Captain Hurd, was empowered to recruit some surveyors of his own, and had soon built up a programme of a dozen Admiralty surveys in home waters and abroad. Trade was quickly building up with the new governments of South America, and there was a need both for a British naval presence in South American waters, and for accurate charts of the coastline to assist shipping. Hence it came about that:

In 1825, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty directed two ships to be prepared for a Survey of the Southern Coasts of South America; and in May of the following year the ADVENTURE and the BEAGLE were lying in Plymouth Sound, ready to carry the orders of their Lordships into execution. These vessels were well provided with every necessary, and every comfort, which the liberality and kindness of the Admiralty, Navy Board, and officers of the Dock-yards, could cause to be furnished.³²

HMS Adventure was a ‘roomy’ ship of 330 tons, without guns, under the command of Captain Phillip Parker King. HMS Beagle was a smaller vessel of 235 tons, rigged as a barque carrying six guns, and commanded by Captain Pringle Stokes. On 19 November 1826, Adventure and Beagle sailed south from Monte Video, and until April 1827 carried out surveys in the south of Patagonia and in Tierra del Fuego, around the Straits of Magellan. In June 1827 they arrived back at Rio de Janeiro. Six months later, now accompanied by a schooner named Adelaide to assist in the surveys – for whose purchase Captain King had prudently obtained Admiralty approval in advance, unlike Captain FitzRoy when in 1833 he bought the second and smaller Adventure – they sailed south again. In January 1828 the Adventure was anchored for the winter at Port Famine. Captain Stokes was ordered in the Beagle ‘to proceed to survey the western coasts, between the Strait of Magalhaens and latitude 47° south, or as much of those dangerous and exposed shores as he could examine’, and to return to Port Famine (Puerto Hambre) by the end of July. Captain King allotted himself a more comfortable task in the Adelaide, charting the southern parts of the Strait relatively close at hand, and collecting birds and plants.

When at the appointed time the Beagle returned to Port Famine with her difficult assignment conscientiously completed, Captain Stokes was found to be in a state of acute depression thanks to the extreme privations and hardships that he and his crew had suffered from very severe weather, both stormy and wet, when working in the Gulf of Peñas. On 1 August 1828 he tried unsuccessfully to shoot himself, and although the surgeons thought for a while that he might recover, he died in great pain on 12 August. He was interred at the Adventure’s burial ground, the so-called English Cemetery two miles from Port Famine. (The tablet erected to his memory has since been moved to the Museo Saleciano in the modern town of Punta Arenas, some forty miles away along the Straits of Magellan.)

The Adventure and the Beagle, temporarily commanded by her First Lieutenant, William Skyring, sailed back to Rio de Janeiro in October for repairs and replenishment of their stores. Here Admiral Otway, Commander-in-Chief of the South American Station, appointed his young Flag Lieutenant, Robert FitzRoy,* to take over command of the Beagle in succession to Captain Pringle Stokes. His choice was successful, and FitzRoy had soon overcome the handicap of restoring the morale of a demoralised ship’s company well enough to continue the charting of one of the world’s most inhospitable coasts.

During 1829 the Adventure, Beagle and Adelaide conducted independent surveys at various points between Tierra del Fuego and Chiloe, coming together at Valparaiso in November. On 19 November the Beagle departed to survey more of the southern coasts of Tierra del Fuego before rejoining the Adventure at Rio de Janeiro for the final return to England. Working among the Camden and Stewart Islands to the south of the mouth of the Cockburn Channel, FitzRoy found tiresome anomalies in his compass bearings, and wrote in his journal for 24 January 1830:

There may be metal in many of the Fuegian mountains, and I much regret that no person in the vessel was skilled in mineralogy, or at all acquainted with geology. It is a pity that so good an opportunity of ascertaining the nature of the rocks and earths of these regions should have been almost lost. I could not avoid often thinking of the talent and experience required for such scientific researches, of which we were wholly destitute; and inwardly resolving, that if ever I left England again on a similar expedition, I would endeavour to carry out a person qualified to examine the land; while the officers and myself would attend to hydrography.³³

A week later it was reported to FitzRoy that the ship’s five-oared whale-boat, manned by Mr Murray, the Master, and a small crew, had been stolen during the night by the Fuegians near Cape Desolation, ‘now doubly deserving of its name’. The bad news was brought to the Beagle by two of the sailors, paddling a basket-like canoe that they had thrown together for the purpose, and whose curious structure was commemorated in the names given both to the small island on which Cape Desolation was located, and to the first of the Fuegians taken hostage by FitzRoy.*

On the Beagle’s map of the Strait of Magalhaens (sic),³⁴ Basket Isle was inserted near the western end of Tierra del Fuego, with Thieves Sound to the north, and Whale Boat Sound to the east. In a modern map the area lies on the coast of Tierra del Fuego due south of Punta Arenas. FitzRoy responded to the theft with a campaign to capture hostages for return of the whale-boat, but the move failed, largely because the Fuegians showed no interest in exchanging their booty for their comrades, who remained quite happily on the ship. So he was left with the young girl Fuegia Basket, ‘as broad as she was high’, and the men York Minster, taken in Christmas Sound near the cliff of that name, and Boat Memory captured later nearby. He soon began to appreciate the practical difficulties that would arise in returning them immediately to their own peoples, and to consider the possibility of taking them back to England for a period of education before they were repatriated.

While a replacement for the whale-boat was being built at Doris Cove, situated on an island beside Adventurer Passage, Mr Murray was dispatched in the ship’s cutter to explore the waters to the north and east of Nassau Bay. Not far to the north, but a long way to the east, he sailed through a channel little more than a third of a mile wide which became known as the Murray Narrow, and which ‘led him into a straight channel, averaging about two miles or more in width, and extending nearly east and west as far as the eye could reach’. He had discovered the Beagle Channel, whose precise orientation on the map would provide grounds for legal dispute long afterwards in arguments between Argentina and Chile over territorial rights in the Antarctic. The new country was thickly populated, and on 11 May 1830, when the Beagle herself was in the Murray Narrow, some canoes full of natives anxious for barter were encountered. FitzRoy wrote: ‘I told one of the boys in a canoe to come into our boat, and gave the man who was with him a large shining mother-of-pearl button.’³⁵ Jemmy Button, as the boat’s crew called him, quickly settled down in his new surroundings, and there were now four Fuegians in FitzRoy’s little group.³⁶

At the end of June the Beagle sailed back to the Rio Plata. While in Monte Video, FitzRoy tried to have the Fuegians vaccinated against smallpox, whose ravages were all too often fatal to unprotected natives, but the vaccination did not take. At the beginning of August the Beagle rejoined the Adventure in Rio de Janeiro, and together they made a ‘most tedious’ passage to Plymouth, where they anchored on 14 October.

FitzRoy’s first thought was for the Fuegians. Landing after dark, they were taken to lodgings where next day they were vaccinated for the second time. With the Beagle’s coxswain James Bennett to look after them, they were then transferred to a farmhouse in the country near Plymstock, where they could enjoy the fresh air and hopefully avoid infection by other virus diseases, without attracting public attention. Meanwhile the Beagle was stripped and cleared out, and on 27 October her pendant was hauled down.

During the voyage home, FitzRoy had addressed through Captain King to John Barrow,³⁷ Second Secretary of the Admiralty, a long account of the manner in which he had taken the four Fuegians on board the Beagle,38 and of his proposal to return them to their country after they had received some education. Mr Barrow’s response, although it was negatively worded and predictably lacking in enthusiasm, said that their Lordships would not interfere with FitzRoy’s benevolent intentions towards the Fuegians, would afford him facilities towards their maintenance and education, and would give them a passage home again. Their Lordships’ promise was duly kept when early in November Boat Memory was taken ill with smallpox, and instructions were at once given for the Fuegians to be admitted to the Royal Naval Hospital at Plymouth for vaccination and treatment. Unhappily Boat Memory, who was FitzRoy’s favourite among them, could not be saved, but the other three were successfully re-vaccinated. Fuegia Basket was in addition taken home by the doctor in charge of them in order to be exposed to measles with his own children. She duly had a favourable attack and quickly recovered with a strengthened immune system.

Through contacts with the Church Missionary Society, the Fuegians were next taken to Walthamstow just outside London for schooling in charge of the Revd William Wilson, and remained in his care until October 1831, still with James Bennett to keep an eye on them. Fuegia Basket and Jemmy Button were very receptive pupils, but the older man York Minster was not. He would reluctantly assist with practical activities like gardening, but firmly refused to learn to read. He also took what seemed to be an unhealthy interest in the ten-year-old Fuegia, following her everywhere, keeping her well away from other men, and treating her as if she was his personal possession. At this time there was no suggestion that anything sexual took place between them, though on board the Beagle later on she was deemed to be officially engaged to York in order to avoid embarrassment, and back in Tierra del Fuego she did become his wife. During that summer the Fuegians were taken to St James’s Palace at King William IV’s request, and Queen Adelaide honoured Fuegia Basket by placing one of her own bonnets on the girl’s head and a ring on her finger, and gave her some money to buy clothes for returning home.

FitzRoy had been led by Captain King to suppose that the Adventure and Beagle’s surveys in South America would need to be continued by some other ship, giving him an opportunity to restore the Fuegians to their native land. But having in March 1831 completed his official obligations with respect to the Beagle’s 1826–1830 cruise, for which he was officially commended, FitzRoy discovered that the Admiralty’s plans had for no stated reason been altered, and that their Lordships no longer intended to complete the survey. Feeling that he could not trust anyone but himself to return the Fuegians to the precise places from which they had been taken, he obtained twelve months’ leave of absence from the Navy. In June he made at his own expense an agreement with the owner of a small merchant ship to take him with five companions, the Fuegians, and a number of goats to Tierra del Fuego, where he proposed to stock some of the islands with goats and deposit his protégée and protégés. This agreement did not, however, have to be put into effect, for FitzRoy happened one day to mention his problem to one of his aristocratic and politically influential uncles, the fourth Duke of Grafton, and the former Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh’s half-brother Lord Londonderry. After some effective wire-pulling at the Admiralty, their Lordships were persuaded to appoint FitzRoy to command the Beagle once again for a second surveying cruise.

The greatest of hydrographers, Captain Francis Beaufort, who had taken charge of the Hydrographic Office in 1829, embraced with enthusiasm the opportunity of filling in some of the many blank spaces in the existing maps of the coast of Argentina and Tierra del Fuego, and extending the naval charts to cover not only Argentina and the Falkland Islands, but also more of the coasts of Chile and Peru as far north as Ecuador. FitzRoy would also be entrusted with the task of carrying a chain of meridian distances, which measured the difference in longitude between an established location and a new one, all the way round the world by sailing back across the Pacific. The Beagle was therefore instructed to return via the Galapagos Islands, Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia – calling at Port Jackson observatory in Sydney, Hobart, and King George Sound – the Cocos Keeling Islands, Mauritius, the Cape of Good Hope, St Helena, Ascension, and so home. Beaufort’s long Memorandum to FitzRoy,³⁹ carefully explaining this plan, included a note forbidding senior officers whom he might encounter to take from him any of his instruments or chronometers; instructions for sedulous observations of the eclipses of Jupiter’s third and fourth satellites; and advice on the best way of handling natives. Lastly, the Beagle was the first ship in the Navy to be issued with Beaufort’s list of the Figures, still in popular use today, to denote the force of the wind, based at the lower end on the speeds at which a man-of-war with all sails set would be driven, and at the upper end on what set of sails could just be carried safely at full chase. A second list of letters was drawn up to describe the state of the weather, but this has now fallen out of use.

The Beaufort Scale

While the Beagle was being extensively refitted at Devonport in preparation for her long voyage, FitzRoy, remembering his resolution to recruit a geologist should he pay another visit to Tierra del Fuego,³⁰ set about finding ‘some well-educated and scientific person who would willingly share such accommodations as I had to offer, in order to profit by the opportunity of visiting distant countries yet little known’.⁴⁰ He began by consulting the most appropriate person at the Admiralty, Francis Beaufort, who being closely in touch with the scientific reformers at Cambridge and in the Royal Society was keen to modernise and bring more science into the Hydrographic Office, and was immediately sympathetic. Beaufort accordingly wrote to his mathematical friend George Peacock at Trinity College, Cambridge, telling him of the opening for ‘a savant’ on a surveying ship. Early in August, Peacock passed the news on to Henslow, although he had not perfectly interpreted the situation in speaking of a vacancy specifically for a naturalist, and in later correspondence placed greater emphasis on FitzRoy’s need for a companionable and gentlemanly scientist:

My dear Henslow

Captain Fitz Roy is going out to survey the southern coast of Terra del Fuego, & afterwards to visit many of the South Sea Islands & to return by the Indian Archipelago: the vessel is fitted out expressly for scientific purposes, combined with the survey: it will furnish therefore a rare opportunity for a naturalist & it would be a great misfortune that it should be lost:

An offer has been made to me to recommend a proper person to go out as a naturalist with this expedition; he will be treated with every consideration; the Captain is a young man of very pleasing manners (a nephew of the Duke of Grafton), of great zeal in his profession & who is very highly spoken of; if Leonard Jenyns could go, what treasures he might bring home with him, as the ship would be placed at his disposal, whenever his enquiries made it necessary or desirable; in the absence of so accomplished a naturalist, is there any person whom you could strongly recommend: he must be such a person as would do credit to our recommendation.

Do think on this subject: it would be a serious loss to the cause of natural science, if this fine opportunity was lost.

The ship sails about the end of Septr.

Poor Ramsay!* what a loss to us all & particularly to you.

Believe me / My dear Henslow / Most truly yours /

George Peacock

7 Suffolk Street / Pall Mall East

My dear Henslow

I wrote this letter on Saturday, but I was too late for the post. What a glorious opportunity this would be for forming collections for our museums: do write to me immediately & take care that the opportunity is not lost.

Believe me / My dear Henslow / Most truly yours /

Geo Peacock

7 Suffolk St. / Monday⁴¹

As has already been seen, Leonard Jenyns was another clerical naturalist, brother-in-law of Henslow and vicar of Swaffham Bulbeck near Cambridge. After a day’s consideration of the offer, Jenyns decided regretfully that he could not leave his parish. Henslow therefore turned to Charles Darwin as the obvious alternative choice, and on 24 August wrote:

My dear Darwin, Before I enter upon the immediate business of this letter, let us condole together upon the loss of our inestimable friend poor Ramsay of whose death you have undoubtedly heard long before this. I will not now dwell upon this painful subject as I shall hope to see you shortly fully expecting that you will eagerly catch at the offer which is likely to be made you of a trip to Terra del Fuego & home by the East Indies. I have been asked by Peacock who will read & forward this to you from London to recommend him a naturalist as companion to Capt Fitzroy employed by Government to survey the S. extremity of America. I have stated that I consider you to be the best qualified person I know of who is likely to undertake such a situation. I state this not on the supposition of yr being a finished Naturalist, but as amply qualified for collecting, observing, & noting anything worthy to be noted in Natural History. Peacock has the appointment at his disposal & if he can not find a man willing to take the office, the opportunity will probably be lost. Capt. F wants a man (I understand) more as a companion than a mere collector & would not take any one however good a Naturalist who was not recommended to him likewise as a gentleman. Particulars of salary &c I know nothing. The Voyage is to last 2 yrs & if you take plenty of Books with you, any thing you please may be done – You will have ample opportunities at command – In short I suppose there never was a finer chance for a man of zeal & spirit. Capt. F is a young man. What I wish you to do is instantly to come to Town & consult with Peacock (at No 7 Suffolk Street Pall Mall East or else at the University Club) & learn further particulars. Don’t put on any modest doubts or fears about your disqualifications for I assure you I think you are the very man they are in search of – so conceive yourself to be tapped on the Shoulder by your Bum-Bailiff* & affecte friend /J.S. Henslow⁴²

This letter was reinforced in similar terms two days later by another from Peacock. Although both Peacock and Henslow said in their letters that FitzRoy was looking for a naturalist, it is evident that at some point in FitzRoy’s original conversation with Beaufort a geologist had been mentioned, for Henslow’s candidate for the post was described by FitzRoy himself as ‘Mr. Charles Darwin, grandson of Dr. Darwin the poet, a young man of promising ability, extremely fond of geology, and indeed all branches of natural history.’⁴³ That FitzRoy thought he was primarily getting a geologist would be consistent with his gift to Charles on their departure from Plymouth of the first volume of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology. Moreover in his first report to the Royal Geographical Society on the Beagle’s return to England in 1836 he said that ‘Mr Charles Darwin will make known the results of his five years’ voluntary seclusion and disinterested exertions in the cause of science. Geology has been his principal pursuit.’

CHAPTER 3

Preparations for the Voyage

Charles arrived back in Shrewsbury on Monday, 29 August from his trip in North Wales with Sedgwick, and was given Peacock’s and Henslow’s letters by his sisters. His immediate and joyful reaction was to accept, but finding next morning that his father was strongly opposed to the scheme, he wrote sorrowfully to Henslow:

Mr Peacock’s letter arrived on Saturday, & I received it late yesterday evening. As far as my own mind is concerned, I should think, certainly most gladly have accepted the opportunity, which you so kindly have offered me. But my Father, although he does not decidedly refuse me, gives such strong advice against going, that I should not be comfortable if I did not follow it. My Fathers objections are these: the unfitting me to settle down as a clergyman; my little habit of seafaring; the shortness of the time & the chance of my not suiting Captain Fitzroy. It is certainly a very serious objection, the very short time for all my preparations, as not only body but mind wants making up for such an undertaking. But if it had not been for my father, I would have taken all risks … Even if I was to go, my Father disliking would take away all energy, & I should want a good stock of that. Again I must thank you; it adds a little to the heavy, but pleasant load of gratitude which I owe to you.⁴⁴

A letter in similar terms that he also wrote to Peacock has not survived.

All was not lost, however, for Robert had recognised the considerable compliment that had been paid to his son by the two eminent academics in Cambridge, and tempered his disapproval by telling Charles, ‘If you can find any man of common sense who advises you to go, I will give my consent.’ He well knew who that man might be, and wrote to Josiah Wedgwood II on 30 August: ‘Charles will tell you of the offer he has had made to him of going for a voyage of discovery for 2 years. – I strongly object to it on various grounds, but I will not detail my reasons that he may have your unbiassed opinion on the subject, & if you feel differently from me I shall wish him to follow your advice.’⁴⁵

Charles himself rode straight over to Maer, where he found his uncle and cousins full of enthusiasm for his embarking on the voyage, and by the evening all were urging him to reopen the case with his father. On 31 August, with Uncle Josiah at his elbow, he wrote an extremely apologetic note to his father, ending on a separate piece of paper with the list of objections to be answered:

I am afraid I am going to make you yet again very uncomfortable. I think you will excuse me once again stating my opinions on the offer of the Voyage. My excuse and reason is the different way all the Wedgwoods view the subject from what you & my sisters do … But pray do not consider that I am so bent on going, that I would for one single moment hesitate if you thought that after a short period, you should continue uncomfortable.

1 Disreputable to my character as a Clergyman hereafter

2 A wild scheme

3 That they must have offered to many others before me, the place of Naturalist

4 And from its not being accepted there must be some serious objection to the vessel or expedition

5 That I should never settle down to a steady life hereafter

6 That my accomodations [sic] would be most uncomfortable

7 That you should consider it as again changing my profession

8 That it would be a useless undertaking⁴⁶

Enclosed with this letter was one from Josiah to Robert:

My dear Doctor I feel the responsibility of your application to me on the offer that has been made to Charles as being weighty, but as you have desired Charles to consult me I cannot refuse to give the result of such consideration as I have been able to give it. Charles has put down what he conceives to be your principal objections & I think the best course I can take will be to state what occurs to me upon each of them.

1— I should not think that it would be in any degree disreputable to his character as a clergyman. I should on the contrary think the offer honorable to him, and the pursuit of Natural History, though certainly not professional, is very suitable to a clergyman. 2— I hardly know how to meet this objection, but he would have definite objects upon which to apply himself, and might acquire and strengthen habits of application, and I should think would be as likely to do so in any way in which he is likely to pass the next two years at home. 3— The notion did not occur to me in reading the letters & on reading them again with that object in my mind I see no ground for it. 4— I cannot conceive that the Admiralty would send out a bad vessel on such a service. As to objections to the expedition, they will differ in each mans case & nothing would, I think, be inferred in Charles’s case if it were known that others had objected. 5— You are a much better judge of Charles’s character than I can be. If, on comparing this mode of spending the next two years, with the way in which he will probably spend them if he does not accept this offer, you think him more likely to be rendered unsteady & unable to settle, it is undoubtedly a weighty objection. Is it not the case that sailors are prone to settle in domestic and quiet habits. 6— I can form no opinion on this further than that, if appointed by the Admiralty, he will have a claim to be as well accommodated as the vessel will allow. 7— If I saw Charles now absorbed in professional studies I should probably think it would not be advisable to interrupt them, but this is not, and I think will not be, the case with him. His present pursuit of knowledge is in the same track as he would have to follow in the expedition. 8— The undertaking would be useless as regards his profession, but looking upon him as a man of enlarged curiousity, it affords him such an opportunity of seeing men and things as happens to few.

You will bear in mind that I have very little time for consideration & that you and Charles are the persons who must decide. I am / My dear Doctor / Affectionately yours / Josiah Wedgwood⁴⁷

Uncle Jos had thus with calm sense disposed effectively of Robert’s rather exaggerated qualms, and his description of Charles as ‘a man of enlarged curiousity’ was truly prophetic.

The two letters were dispatched to Shrewsbury early on 1 September, leaving Josiah and Charles to take out their guns for what would normally have been a specially enjoyable occasion for them, the opening day of the partridge season. They both had much on their minds, and Charles had only brought down a single bird when at ten o’clock Josiah did what ‘few uncles would have done’, bundled him into a carriage, and whisked him off to Shrewsbury to do battle in person with Robert. But there they found to their relief that Robert had already changed his mind, and was now ready to give ‘all the assistance in my power’.

On this same day Beaufort had conveyed the news to Robert FitzRoy that ‘I believe my friend Mr Peacock of Triny College Cambe has succeeded in getting a “Savant” for you – A Mr Darwin grandson of the well known philosopher and poet – full of zeal and enterprize and having contemplated a voyage on his own account to S. America.’ And that afternoon Charles himself sat down at Shrewsbury and wrote for the first time directly to Beaufort, explaining that the situation had changed since he had sent his refusal to Henslow and Peacock, and that if the appointment was still unfilled ‘I shall be very happy to have the honor of accepting it’.

On Saturday, 2 September, Charles returned to Cambridge, and spent Sunday closeted with Henslow, ‘thinking what is to be done’. Henslow explained how he himself had nearly accepted the appointment, but turned it down because of his wife’s unhappiness at the prospect, while Leonard Jenyns had done the same because he could not desert his parish at Swaffham Bulbeck. At Henslow’s, Charles met Alexander Charles Wood, a cousin and good friend of FitzRoy, and currently an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge, and pupil of Peacock. At Peacock’s urging, Wood had written to recommend Charles to FitzRoy, which he had dutifully done, taking the precaution of warning his Tory cousin that Charles was politically a Whig and decidedly liberal in outlook. FitzRoy had just replied in a letter which Charles felt was ‘most straightforward & gentlemanlike, but so much against my going, that I immediately gave up the scheme’. However, Henslow firmly urged him not to make up his mind until he had had serious consultations with Beaufort and FitzRoy, so on Monday morning he took the coach to London, and had his first encounter with his sometimes erratic ‘beau ideal of a captain’.

The two young men, FitzRoy being then only twenty-six years old, and Charles four years younger, at once put themselves out to be agreeable. Charles wrote to his sister Susan, ‘Cap. Fitzroy is in town & I have seen him; it is no use attempting to praise him as much as I feel inclined to do, for you would not believe me.’ FitzRoy proposed that they would mess together, with no wine and the plainest dinners, fully sharing such limited working space as was available in so small a vessel. The trip would inevitably be stormy and uncomfortable, though if Charles found it too much for him he would always be at liberty to withdraw, and during the worst weather he might spend two months ashore in some healthy, safe and nice country. Such openness quickly restored all Charles’s enthusiasm for the voyage, leaving only a slight doubt – soon laid to rest by Beaufort – as to whether the Beagle would indeed sail back across the Pacific and thus circumnavigate the world. Charles wrote later that:

On becoming very intimate with FitzRoy I heard that I had run a very narrow risk of being rejected, on account of the shape of my nose! He was an ardent disciple of Lavater,* and was convinced that he could judge a man’s character by the outline of his features; and he doubted whether anyone with my nose could possess sufficient energy and determination for the voyage. But I think he was afterwards well-satisfied that my nose had spoken falsely.

To his sister Charles concluded, ‘There is indeed a tide in the affairs of men, & I have experienced it, & I had entirely given it up until 1 to day.’

There ensued some frenzied activity in London, while Charles followed up introductions given him by Henslow to experts for advice of all kinds, from naturalists knowledgeable on what to collect and how best to preserve the specimens, to suppliers of instruments, glassware, paper, books and guns. His sisters looked after his wardrobe, buying him strong new pairs of shoes and shirts marked with his name for the ship’s laundry. His friend John Coldstream advised him to use an oyster-trawl of the ordinary size for collecting marine animals, to provide himself with a few lobster pots, and when at anchor to ‘shoot’ some deep-sea fishing lines baited with small pieces of worm-eaten wood and hooks. He met Captain P.P. King, FitzRoy’s senior officer on the previous expedition, and, unasked, King said that FitzRoy’s temper was perfect, and that he was sending his own son Philip Gidley King on the Beagle as a midshipman. Charles lashed out and bought an expensive portable dissecting microscope made by Bancks, of the type recommended to him by the eminent botanist and microscopist Robert Brown. With the help of the bookseller and ornithologist William Yarrell he ordered a rifle and a brace of pistols for £50, flattering himself with the thought that FitzRoy would have spent £400. They might be needed, he told a friend, ‘for we shall have plenty of fighting those d— Cannibals’. On 8 September, when all the shops were closed, he found an excellent seat from which to watch the procession at the coronation of King William IV, who ‘looked very well, & seemed popular: but there was very little enthusiasm, so little that I can hardly think there will be a coronation this time 50 years’. In other spare moments he worked at astronomy, ‘as I suppose it would astound a sailor if one did not know how to find Lat & Long’.

On 11 September Charles embarked with FitzRoy on the three-day passage in a steam packet along the south coast to Plymouth, where his first view of the Beagle in the dockyard at Devonport was an unflattering one, ‘without her masts or bulkheads, & looking more like a wreck than a vessel commissioned to go round the world’. The trip gave FitzRoy an initial chance to evaluate Charles’s sea legs, and to indoctrinate him more fully in the Admiralty’s plans for the Beagle and what had been achieved during her previous voyage. The ship was disconcertingly small, ninety feet long and twenty-four-and-a-half feet wide amidships, with a displacement of 235 tons. Inside the poop cabin, measuring ten feet by eleven, and filled mainly by a large chart table and three chairs, Charles would work with Midshipman Philip Gidley King and the Assistant Surveyor John Lort Stokes (no relative of the Beagle’s former Captain), and sleep in a hammock slung above the table. Stokes’s bed was in a cubicle outside the door, and King’s was on a lower deck. They would eat in the gunroom, but Charles would have the run of the Captain’s cabin on the deck below, where they would take their meals together. Sixty years later, King drew from memory for an edition of Charles’s Journal of Researches a picture of the internal layout of the ship.

Charles sped back to London by coach, ‘wonderful quick travelling, 250 miles in 24 hours’. Here he had a useful talk to Beaufort, who told him that the normal naval practice was for any collections made by the ship’s surgeon automatically to become the property of the government. But as Charles’s appointment was not an official one, he would be best advised to retain for himself the disposal of his collection amongst the different bodies in London. Which of those bodies would be the most suitable ones was an issue that greatly concerned him in subsequent correspondence with Henslow. But the first step was to spend a couple of days in Cambridge, making detailed arrangements for Henslow and a brother of his in London to receive, and keep safely in store until the return of the Beagle, consignments of specimens that in due course would be shipped from South America. Henslow’s parting gift to Charles was a copy of an English translation of the first two volumes of Humboldt’s Personal narrative of travels to the equinoctial regions of the new continent, inscribed ‘J.S. Henslow to his friend C. Darwin on his departure from England upon a voyage round the world. 21 Sept. 1831.’

Back at home in Shrewsbury for his last ten days, Charles packed up his clothes and books, and settled his complicated and sometimes overstrained financial affairs. He wrote to Henslow that his father was much more reconciled to the idea of the voyage now that he had become accustomed to it, and was in fact treating him with a generosity wholly belying the reputation he once had for being an extremely severe parent. Earlier in the summer ‘the Governor’ had handed over a £200 note, no less, to meet Charles’s debts at Cambridge. The cost of equipping him for the voyage amounted to some £600, not far from that of two years’ support at Cambridge, while the Admiralty was exacting £50 per annum for his board and lodging. Charles tried to console his father by saying that he would have to be ‘deuced clever to spend more than my allowance whilst on board the Beagle’, to be answered with a smile, ‘But they all tell me you are very clever.’

On 2 October, Charles said goodbye to his father and sisters. But his best-loved neighbour Fanny Owen, ‘the prettiest, plumpest, Charming personage that Shropshire possesses’, to whom in their correspondence he was ‘Dr Postillion’ and she was ‘the Housemaid’, was away from home in Exeter, and could only write two long letters expressing her grief that she would not see him for two years or more, ‘when we must be grown old & steady’. Charles went to London, and thanks to further delays in the Beagle’s readiness to sail imposed by the dockyard, remained there for three weeks. During this period he wrote to FitzRoy to apologise for the bulkiness of the luggage that he had dispatched to Devonport, and was assured that it was acceptable. In a second letter accompanying yet another parcel containing some talc, which Charles may have required for taxidermy, he enquired whether FitzRoy had a good set of mountain barometers, for ‘Several great guns in the Scientific World have told me some points in geology to ascertain, which entirely depend on their relative height.’ FitzRoy’s reply is not recorded, but Charles did obtain a set of aneroid barometers, of which he made extensive use during the voyage in his investigations of the rise and fall of the land on either side of the Andes. His copy of Jones’s companion to the mountain barometer & tables survives among his papers in the Cambridge University Library.

After a pleasant drive from London, Charles arrived in Devonport on 24 October, and next day found the Beagle ‘moored to the Active hulk & in a state of bustle & confusion’. The carpenters were busy fitting up the drawers in the poop cabin, and ‘My own private corner looks so small that I cannot help fearing that many of my things must be left behind.’ Later on he was wont to refer a little unfairly to the next two months as spent at ‘that horrid Plymouth’. From his letters to his sisters and the entries in the private journal that he kept from 24 October 1831 to 4 October 1836, it is evident that the principal defect of Plymouth in his eyes was its not infrequent storms and rain at the best of times, for ‘It does not require a rain gauge to show how much more rain falls in the Western than in the Central & Eastern parts of England.’ Even more aggravating had been the long series of south-westerly gales in December that forced the abandonment of several attempts to sail. Apart from this, however, Charles’s chief complaint was having had more social engagements than he wished, although they included dinners with the Commander-in-Chief Admiral Sir Manley Dixon at which everyone except for him was a naval officer and of course the conversation was almost exclusively nautical. However, he confessed that this made the evening very pleasant to him.

He dined with the ship’s nine gunroom officers for the first time on 29 October, and was regaled with horrific accounts of the manner in which he would be treated by Neptune on crossing the Equator. The following day he had lunch with the midshipmen, and after being taken for a sail to Millbrook, went for a long scrambling walk with Stokes and Charles Musters, a young Volunteer First Class hoping to become a midshipman. On other occasions he walked with various friends to Cawsand, Rame Head and Whitesand Bay, but his favourite walk, on which he took his brother Erasmus during a week’s farewell visit at the beginning of December, was to the park at Mount Edgcumbe, with what he described as its ‘birds eye view’ of Devonport, Stonehouse and Plymouth.

On 31 October Charles went with Stokes to the Plymouth Athenaeum, where space had been reserved to set up an ‘astronomical house’ for the Beagle in which observations were to be carried out with a dipping needle for the determination of the angular depression of the earth’s magnetic field. During the next weeks he had several sessions with FitzRoy at the needle, which he first described as a ‘very long & delicate operation’, though later he said less enthusiastically that he had been ‘unpleasantly employed in finding out the inaccuracies of Gambey’s new dipping needle’. At the Athenaeum one evening he attended a lecture by a Mr Harris on the virtues of the new system of lightning conductors with which the Beagle was fitted, and whose utility would be tested. He was taken out by FitzRoy to the breakwater protecting Plymouth Sound, where bearings were being taken to connect a particular stone, from which Captain King had based his longitudes for the previous voyage, with the quay at Clarence Baths where the true time was then taken. And he was assigned a regular task every morning of taking and comparing the differences in the Beagle’s barometers. His education in navigation and meteorology therefore proceeded apace.

Charles’s relations with FitzRoy were mostly very cordial, though he later recalled an example of the storms that could suddenly arise, and as quickly be quelled:

At Plymouth before we sailed, he was extremely angry with a dealer in crockery who refused to exchange some article purchased in his shop: the Captain asked the man the price of a very expensive set of china and said ‘I should have purchased this if you had not been so disobliging.’ As I knew that the cabin was amply stocked with crockery, I doubted whether he had any such intention; and I must have shown my doubts in my face, for I said not a word. After leaving the shop he looked at me, saying You do not believe what I have said, and I was forced to own that it was so. He was silent for a few minutes and then said You are right and I acted wrongly in my anger at the blackguard.

On 14 November FitzRoy moved his twenty-two chronometers on to the ship, but the paint was still wet in the poop cabin, so his books could not yet be arranged. A week later, Charles carried all his books and instruments on board the Beagle, after which two hard days’ work with Stokes reduced the poop cabin to ‘very neat order’. The Beagle had now sailed from Devonport to her moorings at Barnett Pool under Mount Edgcumbe ready for her final departure. On 28 November FitzRoy gave a magnificent luncheon for about forty people as a ship’s warming, with waltzing that continued until late in the evening.

On 4 December, in the first journal entry written on board ship, Charles wrote:

I intend sleeping in my hammock. I did so last night & experienced a most ludicrous difficulty in getting into it; my great fault of jockeyship was in trying to put my legs in first. The hammock being suspended, I thus only succeeded in pushing it away without making any progress in inserting my own body. The correct method is to sit accurately in centre of bed, then give yourself a dexterous twist & your head & feet come into their respective places. After a little time I daresay I shall, like others, find it very comfortable.

The next morning was tolerably clear, and sights were obtained, so now the Beagle was ready for her long-delayed moment of starting. But at midday a heavy gale blew up from the south, making the ship move so much that Charles was nearly sick, and ruling out any escape from the harbour. ‘In the evening dined with Erasmus,’ he wrote. ‘I shall not often have such quiet snug dinners.’ However, gales from that unlucky point south-west recurred daily, and Charles had more last dinners and one more walk to Mount Edgcumbe with Erasmus. On 10 December the wind dropped more hopefully, and the Beagle sailed at ten o’clock with Erasmus on board, dropping him off after doubling the breakwater. But in the evening the barometer gave notice of yet another gale, and after a wild and very uncomfortable night it was determined to put back to Plymouth and there remain for a more fortunate wind. Charles reflected ruefully that although he had done right to accept the offer of the voyage, ‘I think it is doubtful how far it will add to the happiness of one’s life. If I keep my health & return, & then have strength of mind quietly to settle down in life, my present & future share of vexation & want of comfort will be amply repaid.’

Two days later, while the weather still showed little sign of improvement, Charles made some serious resolutions:

An idle day; dined for the first time in Captain’s cabin & felt quite at home. Of all the luxuries the Captain has given me, none will be so essential as that of having my meals with him. I am often afraid I shall be quite overwhelmed with the numbers of subjects which I ought to take into hand. It is difficult to mark out any plan & without method on ship-board I am sure little will be done. The principal objects are 1st, collecting observing & reading in all branches of Natural history that I possibly can manage. Observations in Meteorology. French & Spanish, Mathematics, & a little Classics, perhaps not more than Greek Testament on Sundays. I hope generally to have some one English book to hand for my amusement, exclusive of the above mentioned branches. If I have not energy enough to make myself steadily industrious during the voyage, how great & uncommon an opportunity of improving myself shall I throw away. May this never for one moment escape my mind, & then perhaps I may have the same opportunity of drilling my mind that I threw away whilst at Cambridge.

The wind remained obstinately in the wrong point, until on 21 December there was a light north-westerly which encouraged the Beagle to try again to depart. After going aground off Drake’s Island and taking several hours to get off again, the ship sailed out of the harbour, and once in the open sea Charles was soon overcome by sickness and retreated first to the Captain’s cabin and then to his hammock. But during the night the wind strengthened and shifted back yet again to the south-west, and Charles awoke to find himself once more back in Plymouth Sound.

On Christmas Day, Charles went ashore to church, to find an old Cambridge friend preaching. He then lunched in the gunroom, where the dullness of the conversation made him ‘properly grateful for my good luck in living with the Captain’. In the meantime the crew exercised their traditional custom of making themselves so drunk that Midshipman King was obliged to perform the duty of sentry. Boxing Day was greeted with an excellent wind for sailing, but the ship was still in a state approaching anarchy, with the worst offenders in heavy chains. At long last, on 27 December, the Beagle tacked with some difficulty out of the harbour, accompanied by the Commissioner Captain Ross in what Charles described as his ‘Yatch’. After lunching with Captain Ross on mutton chops and champagne, Lieutenant Sulivan and Charles ‘joined the Beagle about 2 o’clock outside the Breakwater, & immediately with every sail filled by a light breeze we scudded away at the rate of 7 or 8 knots an hour – I was not sick that evening but went to bed early’. The voyage of the Beagle had begun.

CHAPTER 4

From Plymouth to the Cape Verde Islands

During his first week at sea there was a heavy swell in the Bay of Biscay, and Charles suffered severely from sea-sickness, as he did throughout the voyage, noting gloomily that ‘I often said before starting that I had no doubt I should frequently repent of the whole undertaking. Little did I think with what fervour I should do so. I can scarcely conceive any more miserable state, than when such dark & gloomy thoughts are haunting the mind as have today pursued me.’ It did not help that his thoughts were also most unpleasantly occupied by his having had to witness the flogging of several members of the crew in punishment for their drunkenness on Christmas Day. Fifteen years later he wrote to FitzRoy:

Farewell, dear Fitz-Roy, I often think of your many acts of kindness to me, and not seldomest on the time, no doubt quite forgotten by you, when, before making Madeira, you came and arranged my hammock with your own hands, and which, as I afterwards heard, brought tears into my father’s eyes.⁴⁸

On 31 December the weather was milder, and Charles’s spirits were raised by his first sight of a shoal of porpoises dashing round the vessel, and a stormy petrel skimming over the waves. He spent the afternoon lying on the sofa in the Captain’s cabin, and reading Humboldt’s glowing accounts of tropical scenery, concluding that nothing could be better adapted for cheering the heart of a sea-sick man.

On 6 January 1832 the Beagle arrived at the Canary Islands, and anchored off the port of Santa Cruz on Teneriffe. Although some geographers had adopted the Peak of Teneriffe as a zero point from which to reckon longitude, FitzRoy considered that such a procedure was unsatisfactory because of a lack of data on the precise position of starting points in the neighbourhood of Teneriffe with respect to the Peak itself. However, immediately the anchor had been lowered, a boat carrying the British Vice-Consul and some quarantine officers came alongside with the news that because of reports on the occurrence of cholera in England, nobody would be permitted to land without first undergoing a rigorous twelve days of quarantine. FitzRoy felt that his objective could not be achieved without making observations on shore, and that such a delay was not acceptable, so up came the anchor and the Beagle made sail for the Cape Verde Islands. Knowing of Charles’s unfulfilled plans for an expedition to Teneriffe, FitzRoy wrote:

This was a great disappointment to Mr Darwin, who had cherished a hope of visiting the Peak. To see it – to anchor and be on the point of landing, yet be obliged to turn away without the slightest prospect of beholding Teneriffe again – was indeed to him a real calamity.⁴⁹

The first of Charles’s zoology notes was made off Santa Cruz that day, when he wrote:

The sea was luminous in specks & in the wake of the vessel of an uniform slight milky colour. – When the water was put into a bottle it gave out sparks for some few minutes after having been drawn up. – When examined both at night & next morning, it was found full of numerous small (but many bits visible to naked eye) irregular pieces of a (gelatinous?) matter. – The sea next morning was in the same place equally impure.⁵⁰

Four days later the sea was again very luminous from the presence of myriads of tiny shrimps giving out a strong green light. Charles wrote in his journal:

I proved today the utility of a contrivance which will afford me many hours of amusement & work. It is a bag four feet deep made of bunting; & attached to a semicircular bow this by lines is kept upright, & dragged behind the vessel. This evening it brought up a mass of small animals, & tomorrow I look forward to a greater harvest.⁵¹

This was only the second recorded use, following that of the Irish zoologist J. Vaughan Thompson a few years earlier, of a net specifically designed for the capture of plankton, the name adopted sixty years later for the many kinds of small plants (phytoplankton) or animals (zooplankton) found floating or drifting at various depths in the ocean. Unlike John Coldstream’s oyster trawl, whose lower bar was dragged along the bottom of the sea so that it gathered up the organisms that lived there, Charles’s net was intended to collect from the surface of the water. His notes continue:

11th. I am quite tired having worked all day at the produce of my net. The number of animals that the net collects is very great & fully explains the manner so many animals of a large size live so far from land. Many of these creatures so low in the scale of nature are most exquisite in their forms & rich colours. It creates a feeling of wonder that so much beauty should be apparently created for such little purpose.

This was indeed a most auspicious beginning, for Charles was far ahead of his time in his instant perception of the significance of plankton in what nowadays would be called the oceanic food web.

During the next few days a number of interesting animals were captured in the net. One of the first was a Portuguese man-of-war, Physalia, a colonial hydrozoan of the order known as siphonophores,* which have a large horizontal float to hold them at the surface of the sea and long tentacles for capturing their prey. This particular species is well known to swimmers in the warm parts of the North Atlantic for its capability of inflicting a painful sting, as Charles quickly found when he got some of the slime on to his fingers, and on accidentally putting them into his mouth felt the disagreeable sensation, familiar to him, that biting the root of the arum lily produces. There were other hydrozoans such as sea butterflies like the By-the-Wind Sailor Velella, with a small sail on its upper surface, some salps growing in long chains, and ‘a very simple animal’ of which Charles produced an excellent picture on the first page of the twenty plates that he drew under his Bancks microscope to illustrate his Zoology Notes. He later found more of these creatures off the coasts of Brazil and Patagonia, where he described their anatomy in greater detail, but he had still not succeeded in classifying them when the Beagle returned to England in 1836. Today they are instantly recognisable as arrow-worms of the genus Sagitta, powerful carnivorous predators on other planktonic animals, which are seized by grasping spines located on either side of the head. They are plankton common in all tropical seas, but they had only been formally named in 1827, in a paper that was not in the Beagle’s library.

On the Beagle’s arrival at St Jago (São Tiago on a modern map) in the Cape Verde Islands on 16 January, Charles divided his time between geology in the mornings, collecting the animals that he found on the seashore in the middle of the day, and examining his specimens and writing his notes in the evening. With FitzRoy and the First Lieutenant John Wickham he visited St Jago’s famous baobab tree of legendary age, whose height was measured with naval accuracy both by triangulation and by being climbed by the Captain and letting down a string from the top. The marine wildlife included a variety of sea slugs (Doris), sea hares (Aplysia), sea urchins, sea anemones, shells, turbellarian flatworms, and some corals, but the highlight was Charles’s encounter with an octopus, of which he wrote:

Found amongst the rocks West of Quail Island at low water an Octopus. When first discovered he was in a hole & it was difficult to perceive what it was. As soon as I drove him from his den he shot with great rapidity across the pool of water, leaving in his train a large quantity of the ink. Even then, when in shallow place it was difficult to catch him, for he twisted his body with great ease between the stones & by his suckers stuck very fast to them. When in the water the animal was of a brownish purple, but immediately when on the beach the colour changed to a yellowish green. When I had the animal in a basin of salt water on board this fact was explained by its having the Chamælion like power of changing the colour of its body. The general colour of animal was French grey with numerous spots of bright yellow. The former of these colours varied in intensity, the other entirely disappeared & then again returned. Over the whole body there were continually passing clouds, varying in colour from a “hyacinth red” to a “Chesnut brown”. As seen under a lens these clouds consisted of minute points apparently injected with a coloured fluid. The whole animal presented a most extraordinary mottled appearance, & much surprised every body who saw it. The edges of the sheath were orange, this likewise varied its tint. The animal seemed susceptible to small shocks of galvanism: contracting itself & the parts between the point of contact of wires, became almost black. This in a lesser degree followed from scratching the animal with a needle. The cups were in double rows on the arms & coloured reddish. The eye could be entirely closed by a circular eyelid, the pupil was of a dark blue. The animal was slightly phosphorescent at night.⁵²

Charles was greatly excited by what he thought was a new discovery, and described it enthusiastically in his first letter to Henslow. But Henslow replied that he too had seen the colour changes of an octopus he had caught at Weymouth, and that the phenomenon had also been reported by others. Cuvier had indeed mentioned the ability of an octopus to outdo a chameleon in this respect, but Charles was nevertheless the first to give an accurate description of the properties of its chromatophores, the pigment cells in the skin whose rapid contraction and expansion under nervous control are responsible for the vivid colour changes in octopus and other cephalopods such as cuttlefish and squid. Their function is not only to camouflage the animals when they move to new surroundings, but as has only been appreciated very recently, to provide a means of communication between them.

In his Autobiography, Charles wrote:

The investigation of the geology of all the places visited was far more important than natural history, as reasoning here comes into play. On first examining a new district nothing can appear more hopeless than the chaos of rocks; but by recording the stratification and nature of the rocks and fossils at many points, always reasoning and predicting what will be found elsewhere, light soon begins to dawn on the district, and the structure of the whole becomes more or less intelligible. I had brought with me the first volume of Lyell’s Principles of Geology, which I studied attentively; and this book was of the highest service to me in many ways. The very first place which I examined, namely St. Jago in the Cape Verde Islands, showed me clearly the wonderful superiority of Lyell’s manner of treating geology, compared with that of any other author whose works I had with me or ever afterwards read.

His copy of Volume 1 of Lyell’s Principles was inscribed ‘Given me by Capt. F.R. C.Darwin’, and he had been advised by Henslow to read it ‘but on no account to accept the views therein advocated’.

Charles’s first geological project was to examine the structure of Quail Island, which as it happened was painted by the artist Conrad Martens about eighteen months later, on his way out to join the Beagle at Monte Video (see Plate 1). It was a ‘miserable desolate spot less than a mile in circumference’ in the harbour of Porto Praya, but served Charles usefully as a key to the structure of the main island of St Jago. He wrote in his Autobiography:

The geology of St Jago is very striking yet simple: a stream of lava formerly flowed over the bed of the sea, formed of triturated recent shells and corals, which it has baked into a hard white rock. Since then the whole island has been upheaved. But the line of white rock revealed to me a new and important fact, namely that there had been afterwards subsidence round the craters, which had since been in action, and had poured forth lava. It then first dawned on me that I might perhaps write a book on the geology of the various countries visited, and this made me thrill with delight. That was a memorable hour to me, and how distinctly I can call to mind the low cliff of lava beneath which I rested, with the sun glowing hot, a few strange desert plants growing near, and with living corals in the tidal pools at my feet.

In the notes made at the time Charles’s interpretation was that both islands were volcanic, and had at some not too distant time been submerged beneath the sea, where they quietly collected beds of marine material, followed by another layer of molten lava.⁵³ ‘The whole mass was then raised, since which or at the time there has been a partial sinking. I judge of this from the appearance of distortion, & indeed the distant line of coast seen to the East, which is considerably higher, bears me out.’

This was accompanied by a section drawing of Quail Island showing the successive layers. Tests on specimens from the white layer D showed that it ‘Effervesces readily with Mur: Acid, gives precipitate with Oxalate of Ammonia. – Under Blowpipe becomes slowly caustic, & with heat Cobalt remains of a Violet colour. – Carbonate of Magnesia. (?) Carb. of Lime.’ (The white line may be seen in Plate 1.)

In his first independent geological project, Charles’s careful analysis of the sequence of rocks in Quail Island showed with what great effect he had followed the teaching of Sedgwick and Henslow. His notes also reveal how geology allowed him from the start to exercise to the full his latent passion for argument and theorisation. On completing his notes on Quail Island, he immediately reread them and wrote, ‘I have drawn my pen through those parts which appear absurd,’ and a year later he added a long list of further comments and theories. At the same time he immediately fell in wholeheartedly with Lyell’s gradualist and not yet generally accepted approach that geological changes resulted from slow processes operating over a long period of time. Thus his evidence clearly supported the view that both subsidence and elevation of the land must have taken place over an appreciable area in the not too distant past, and he was led to agree with Lyell that the forces involved might act slowly and evenly so as to leave superficial features of the landscape and buildings undisturbed. Another relevant factor in the story was Charles’s identification of the dust that thickly coated the ship throughout their visit to St Jago, ‘to the great injury of fine astronomical instruments’, as volcanic in origin.

Charles reacted to his first day on St Jago with the enthusiasm that never deserted him:

I returned to the shore, treading on Volcanic rock, hearing the notes of unknown birds, & seeing new insects fluttering about still newer flowers. It has been for me a glorious day, like giving to a blind man eyes – he is overwhelmed with what he sees & cannot justly comprehend it. Such are my feelings, & such may they remain.

CHAPTER 5

Across the Equator to Bahia

On the day originally fixed for sailing on across the Atlantic to Brazil, FitzRoy was busy on shore complying with Captain Beaufort’s strict instructions that no port should be quitted before not only the magnetic angle, but also the dip and daily variation had been ascertained. On 8 February the instruments were re-embarked, and after swinging the ship and determining less than twenty minutes’ difference in any position of the bearing of the peak eleven miles away, the Beagle weighed anchor and sailed. On 10 February they came alongside the packet Lyra, on passage from London to Rio de Janeiro, and were pleased to find that she was carrying a box of six sounding-leads for them, modified by their designer to operate satisfactorily at depths well below a hundred fathoms. Charles posted a brief letter to his father, in case it might arrive sooner than a long one due to be dispatched from Bahia, in which he said:

I think, if I can so soon judge, I shall be able to do some original work in Natural History – I find there is so little known about many of the Tropical animals.

At sunset on 15 February the St Paul Rocks were seen on the horizon, these being the summit of a sunken mountain, and further from land than FitzRoy had ever seen a group of such small rocks. At daylight next morning the sea was smooth, and while the Beagle sailed round so that Stokes could take angles and make soundings, two boats were sent out to enable FitzRoy, Charles and a party to land on the rocks and examine them. As FitzRoy described it:

When our party had effected a landing through the surf, and had a moment’s leisure to look about them, they were astonished at the multitudes of birds which covered the rocks, and absolutely darkened the sky. Mr Darwin afterwards said that till then he had never believed the stories of men knocking down birds with sticks; but there they might be kicked before they would move out of the way. The first impulse of our invaders of this bird-covered rock was to lay about them like schoolboys; even the geological hammer at last became a missile. ‘Lend me a hammer?’ asked one. ‘No, no’ replied the owner, ‘you’ll break the handle’; but hardly had he said so, when, overcome by the novelty of the scene, and the example of those around him, away went the hammer, with all the force of his own right arm.⁵⁴

In his own account Charles did not deny that he had been somewhat carried away. So he participated in the slaughter of birds on land while a similar struggle to obtain fish for the cooking pot was also taking place in the surrounding waters, both birds and fish being welcome to men who had been living too long on salt provisions. But he nevertheless found time to note that unlike almost all other isolated rocks in mid-ocean, St Paul was exceptionally not volcanic in origin, but was a mineral unfamiliar to him that incorporated streaks of serpentine.* The surrounding waters were very deep, so that it was the tip of a very large and steeply sided mountain. His conclusion was correct, and the modern view is that St Paul is an important example of the primordial material of the earth’s mantle modified to become the basalt layer of the oceanic crust. The only birds to be seen were boobies, a species of gannet, and noddies, a species of tern; and the only other animals of any size were large tropical crabs of the genus Grapsus. Not a single plant, nor even a lichen, could Charles find growing on the rocks. There were some ticks and mites, and a small brown moth feeding on feathers that could have arrived with the birds; a rove beetle and a woodlouse from beneath the dung; and a large number of spiders that presumably preyed on the other insects. He reflected that since the first colonists of the coral islets in the South Seas were probably similar, ‘it destroys the poetry of the story to find that these little vile insects should thus take possession before the cocoanut tree and other noble plants have appeared’.

The Beagle sailed on. They were now close to the Equator, and preparations were set in hand for the traditional naval ceremonies that accompanied ‘crossing the line’. Soon after dark they were hailed by the gruff voice of a pseudo-Neptune. The Captain held a conversation with him through a speaking-trumpet, and it was arranged that in the morning he would visit the ship.

The proceedings next day were vividly described from memory nearly sixty years later by the then fourteen-year-old Midshipman Philip Gidley King:

The effect produced on the young naturalist’s mind was unmistakably remarkable. His first impression was that the ship’s crew from Captain downwards had gone off their heads. ‘What fools these sailors make of themselves’, he said as he descended the companion ladder to wait below till he was admitted. The Captain received his godship and Amphitrite his wife with becoming solemnity; Neptune was surrounded by a set of the most ultra-demoniacal looking beings that could be well imagined, stripped to the waist, their naked arms and legs bedaubed with every conceivable colour which the ship’s stores could turn out, the orbits of their eyes exaggerated with broad circles of red and yellow pigments. Those demons danced a sort of nautical war dance exulting on the fate awaiting their victims below. Putting his head down the after companion the captain called out ‘Darwin, look up here!’ Up came the young naturalist in wonderment but yet prepared for any extravagance in the world that seamen could produce. A gaze for a moment at the scene on deck was sufficient, he was convinced he was amongst madmen, and giving one yell, disappeared again down the ladder. He was of course the first to be called by the official secretary, and Neptune received him with grace and courtesy, observing that in deference to his high standing on board as a friend and messmate of the Captain his person would be held sacred from the ordinary rites observed in the locality. Of course Mr Darwin readily entered into the fun and submitted to a few buckets of water thrown over him and the Captain as they sat together by one of the youngsters as if by accident.⁵⁵

From Charles’s own account, he was treated with rather less courtesy than King remembered:

Before coming up, the constable blindfolded me & thus lead along, buckets of water were thundered all around. I was then placed on a plank, which could be easily tilted up into a large bath of water. They then lathered my face & mouth with pitch and paint, & scraped some of it off with a piece of roughened iron hoop. A signal being given I was tilted head over heels into the water, where two men received me & ducked me. At last, glad enough, I escaped. Most of the others were treated much worse, dirty mixtures being put in their mouths & rubbed on their faces. The whole ship was a shower bath, & water was flying about in every direction, of course not one person, even the Captain, got clear of being wet through.

Although FitzRoy condemned the practice as an absurd and dangerous piece of folly, he also defended its survival on the grounds that ‘its effects on the minds of those engaged in preparing for its mummeries, who enjoy it at the time, and talk of it long afterwards, cannot easily be judged of without being an eyewitness’.

The Beagle’s next port of call on 20 February was at Fernando Noronha, another isolated group of small islands, where the most prominent feature was a conical hill on the principal island rising very steeply to a peak a thousand feet high, and seemingly overhanging the shore on one side. Near its summit a permanently manned lookout station was maintained by the Brazilian government. According to Beaufort’s programme, FitzRoy was required to verify some measurements of longitude made a few years earlier by another survey ship in pendulum experiments conducted in the Governor’s house.

With the Beagle lying offshore that evening before anchoring in the harbour, Lieutenant Sulivan skilfully harpooned a large porpoise, and moments later ‘a dozen knives were skinning him for supper’. In the morning, landing despite the high surf as near as possible to the house where the previous observations had probably been made, FitzRoy took his shots of the sun and compared his chronometers with those used on shore, while Charles spent ‘a most delightful day in wandering about the woods’. He concluded that unlike the St Paul Rocks, Fernando Noronha consisted of a volcanic rock called phonolite,* which had probably been injected in a molten state among yielding strata, but was not of very recent origin. The island was thickly covered with trees, often coated with delicate blossoms, though because of the low rainfall their growth was not luxurious, and FitzRoy noted that firewood collected by the crew was full of centipedes and other noxious insects. There were no gaudy birds, no humming birds, and no flowers, so Charles felt that he had not yet seen the full grandeur of the Tropics.

At noon on 28 February the Beagle anchored in the great Bay of All Saints (Baia de Todos os Santos) on the mainland of Brazil, on the north side of which the fine old town of Bahia, now known as Salvador, was situated. The view of the town itself was magnificent, and when next morning Charles had ventured ashore, he wrote in his journal of what he saw with a characteristic aesthetic appreciation, coupled with a strictly practical conclusion:

The day has passed delightfully: delight is however a weak term for such transports of pleasure – I have been wandering by myself in a Brazilian forest. Amongst the multitude it is hard to say what set of objects is most striking. The general luxuriance of the vegetation bears the victory: the elegance of the grasses, the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers, the glossy green of the foliage, all tend to this end. A most paradoxical mixture of sound & silence pervades the shady parts of the wood. The noise from the insects is so loud that in the evening it can be heard even in a vessel anchored several hundred yards from the shore. Yet within the recesses of the forest when in the midst of it a universal stillness appears to reign. To a person fond of Natural History such a day as this brings with it pleasure more acute than he ever may again experience. After wandering about for some hours, I returned to the landing place. Before reaching it I was overtaken by a Tropical storm. I tried to find shelter under a tree so thick that it would never have been penetrated by common English rain, yet here in a couple of minutes, a little torrent flowed down the trunk. It is to this violence we must attribute the verdure in the bottom of the wood. If the showers were like those of a colder clime, the moisture would be absorbed or evaporated before reaching the ground.

He took many more walks with King or another companion, and after collecting numerous small beetles and some geological specimens, reflected that:

It is a new & pleasant thing for me to be conscious that naturalizing is doing my duty, & that if I neglected that duty I should at the same time neglect what has for some years given me so much pleasure.

Sometimes it was driver ants that caught his attention:

Some of the smaller species migrate in large bodies. One day my attention was drawn by many spiders, Blattaæ [a species of cockroach] & other insects rushing in the greatest agitation across a bare bit of ground. Behind this every stalk & leaf was blackened by a small ant. They crossed the open space till they arrived at a piece of old wall on the side of the road. Here the swarm divided & descended on each side, by this many insects were fairly enclosed: & the efforts which the poor little creatures made to extricate themselves from such a death were surprising. When the ants came to the road they changed their course & in narrow files reascended the wall & proceeding along one side in the course of a few hours (when I returned) they all had disappeared. When a small stone was placed in the track of one of their files, the whole of them first attacked it & then immediately retired: it would not on the open space have been one inch out of their way to have gone round the obstacle, & doubtless if it had previously been there, they would have done so. In a few seconds another larger body returned to the attack, but they not succeeding in moving the stone, this line of direction was entirely given up.

On another day he shot a most beautiful large lizard, but he complained that both here and at Rio de Janeiro, birds seemed to be unexpectedly scarce in the tropical jungle. Had he, however, set up a modern mist net in a clearing, and left it unobserved for an hour, he would have been better impressed by the large number of small birds that would have been caught in it.

Confined on board the Beagle by a badly swollen knee for a couple of weeks, Charles captured a puffer fish Diodon swimming in its unexpanded form alongside the ship, and since he was always interested in the mechanics of animal movements, wrote a closely analysed account of its behaviour, as usual unafraid to contradict the authorities if necessary:

On head four soft projections; the upper ones longer like the feelers of a snail. Eye with pupil dark blue; iris yellow mottled with black. The dorsal, caudal & anal fins are so close together that they act as one. These, as well as the Pectorals which are placed just before branchial apertures, are in a continued state of tremulous motion even when the animal remains still. The animal propels its body by using these posterior fins in same manner as a boat is sculled, that is by moving them rapidly from side to side with an oblique surface exposed to the water. The pectoral fins have great play, which is necessary to enable the animal to swim with its back downwards. When handled, a considerable quantity of a fine “Carmine red” fibrous secretion was emitted from the abdomen & stained paper, ivory &c of a high colour. The fish has several means of defence, it can bite hard & can squirt water to some distance from its Mouth, making at the same time a curious noise with its jaws. After being taken out of water for a short time & then placed in again, it absorbed by the mouth (perhaps likewise by the branchial apertures) a considerable quantity of water & air, sufficient to distend its body into a perfect globe. This process is effected by two methods: chiefly by swallowing & then forcing it into the cavity of the body, its return being prevented by a muscular contraction which is externally visible; and by the dilatation of the animal producing suction. The water however I observed entered in a stream through the mouth, which was distended wide open & motionless; hence this latter action must have been caused by some kind of suction. When the body is thus distended, the papillæ with which it is covered become stiff, the above mentioned tentacula on the head being excepted. The animal being so much buoyed up, the branchial openings are out of water, but a stream regularly flowed out of them which was as constantly replenished by the mouth. After having remained in this state for a short time, the air & water would be expelled with considerable force from the branchial apertures & the mouth. The animal at its pleasure could emit a certain portion of the water & I think it is clear that this is taken in partly for the sake of regulating the specific gravity of its body. The skin about the abdomen is much looser than that on the back & in consequence is most distended; hence the animal swims with its back downwards. Cuvier doubts their being able to swim when in this position; but they clearly can not only swim forward, but also move round. This they effect, not like other fish by the action of their tails, but collapsing the caudal fins, they move only by their pectorals. When placed in fresh water seemed singularly little inconvenienced.

The prevailing rock in Bahia was gneiss-granite.* An interesting point was that in the immediate neighbourhood of Bahia, the foliations tended to be lined up with the coastline striking E 50°N, in agreement with the observations of Humboldt in Venezuela and Colombia.

It was at Bahia that one of Charles’s most violent quarrels with FitzRoy arose. When he first landed there he was horrified to find himself in a country that was still a haven for ‘that scandal to Christian Nations, Slavery’ by legally importing slaves from Africa. This practice continued, thanks to the dependence of the Brazilian coffee-growers on slave labour, until it was abolished a quarter of a century later in response to sustained pressure from the British government. Slavery was an issue that always aroused Charles’s strongest emotions, brought up as he had been in a family where both of his grandfathers had played prominent parts in the anti-slavery movement during the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, and which numbered influential Whig campaigners for the abolition of slavery among their friends. Two weeks later, Captain Paget of HMS Samarang, when dining with FitzRoy on the Beagle, regaled the company with horrific facts about the practice of slave owners in Brazil. As Charles recorded in his journal, Paget also proved the utter falseness of the view that even the best-treated of the slaves did not wish to return home to their countries. What Charles did not record at the time, but only revealed much later, was the sequel:

Early in the voyage at Bahia in Brazil, FitzRoy defended and praised slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just visited a great slave-owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked them whether they were happy, and whether they wished to be free, and all answered ‘No’. I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the answers of slaves in the presence of their master was worth anything. This made him excessively angry, and he said that as I doubted his word, we could not live any longer together. I thought that I should have been compelled to leave the ship; but as soon as the news spread, which it did quickly, as the captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving an invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess with them. But after a few hours FitzRoy showed his usual magnanimity by sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I would continue to live with him.⁵⁶

As on other occasions, FitzRoy’s anger was short-lived. Moreover, as he had already shown by his actions, he was always very sympathetic to natives, slaves and underdogs of all kinds, so that his outburst was perhaps more a reflection of his Tory political views than of his true feelings for humanity. Charles’s point was well taken, and when writing from Monte Video to Beaufort in July 1833, FitzRoy said, ‘If other trades fail, when I return to old England (if that day ever arrives) I am thinking of raising a crusade against the slavers! Think of Monte Video having sent out four slavers!!! … The Adventure will make a good privateer!!’ And by the end of the voyage his views on the evil of slavery in Brazil were fully in agreement with those held by Charles.⁵⁷

CHAPTER 6

Rio de Janeiro

On 18 March, after taking further soundings for the chart of the Bay of All Saints, the Beagle sailed slowly out in a light wind, and headed for the Abrolhos, a group of uninhabited islets off the coast of Brazil some 350 miles south of Bahia. Five days later the wind was still light, but there was a sufficient swell to make Charles uncomfortable. Occupation was always the best cure, so he settled down at his microscope to examine a mould called mucor growing on ginger from the steward’s cupboard. He wrote in his notes:

Mucor growing on green ginger: colour yellow, length from 1/20 to 1/15 of an inch. Diameter of stalk .001, of ball at extremity .006. Stalk transparent, cylindrical for about 1/10 of length, near to ball it is flattened, angular & rather broarder:* Terminal spherule full of grains, .0001 in diameter & sticking together in planes: When placed in water the ball partially burst & sent forth with granules large bubbles of air. A rush of fluid was visible in the stalk or cylinder. If merely breathed on, the spherule expanded itself & three conical semitransparent projections were formed on surface. (Much in the same manner as is seen in Pollen) These cones in a short time visibly were contracted & drawn within the spherule.

Unfortunately the specimen of the mould Mucor (Mucoraceae) was not well preserved, and Henslow wrote to Charles in January 1833 after receiving the first consignment from the Beagle, ‘For goodness sake what is No. 223; it looks like the remains of an electric explosion, a mere mass of soot – something very curious I dare say.’

Around the Abrolhos there were shallow rocky shoals stretching far out to the east. One of the tasks allotted to the Beagle by Beaufort was to determine the precise extent of these shoals. FitzRoy therefore steered south-east to the latitude of the Abrolhos, and then turned west, sounding all the time, until a well-defined rocky bank was reached at a roughly constant depth of thirty fathoms. After spending two days surveying parts of the Abrolhos that had not been properly covered by a French expedition under Baron Roussin in 1818–21, perhaps because of the disconcertingly sudden changes in depth called by the French ‘coups de sonde’, two parties landed on 29 March. Charles launched an attack on the rocks and insects and plants, while members of the crew began a much more bloody one on the birds, of which an enormous number were slaughtered. Charles reported to FitzRoy that the rocks, rising to about a hundred feet above the sea in horizontal strata, were of gneiss and sandstone. The general description of the islands entered in his notes was:

The Abrolhos Islands seen from a short distance are of a bright green colour. The vegetation consists of succulent plants & Gramina [grasses], interspersed with a few bushes & Cactuses. Small as my collection of plants is from the Abrolhos I think it contains nearly every species then flowering. Birds of the family of Totipalmes [an old group name for some web-footed sea birds] are exceedingly abundant, such as Gannets, Tropic birds & Frigates. The number of Saurians is perhaps the most surprising thing, almost every stone has its accompanying lizard: Spiders are in great numbers: likewise rats: The bottom of the adjoining sea is thickly covered by enormous brain stones [solitary stony corals similar in appearance to a brain]; many of them could not be less than a yard in diameter.

The Beagle sailed on towards Rio, and on 1 April all hands were busy making fools of one another. The hook was easily baited, and when Lieutenant Sulivan cried out, ‘Darwin, did you ever see a Grampus: Bear a hand then,’ Charles rushed out in a transport of enthusiasm, and was received by a roar of laughter from the whole watch.

Eighty miles from Rio they passed close to the promontory of Cape Frio, where not many years ago gleaming white sand still covered the shore, but today there is a line of skyscrapers. FitzRoy was anxious to revisit the scene where, on the evening of 5 December 1830, the frigate HMS Thetis, bound urgently for England with a cargo of treasure, had been battling desperately against contrary winds and was carried far off course by an unsuspected current, until in strong rain and very poor visibility she had sailed at nine knots directly on to the cliffs at Cape Frio, bringing down all three of her masts and injuring many men. In the subsequent struggles, with waves breaking heavily on the hull, twenty-five members of the crew were lost, and the ship quickly sank. FitzRoy had at one time served as a lieutenant on the Thetis, and concluded his deeply felt account of this tragic accident with the words:

Those who never run any risk; who sail only when the wind is fair; who heave to when approaching land, though perhaps a day’s sail distant; and who even delay the performance of urgent duties until they can be done easily and quite safely; are, doubtless, extremely prudent persons: but rather unlike those officers whose names will never be forgotten while England has a navy.⁵⁸

Arriving at Rio de Janeiro on the evening of 4 April, Charles proudly noted that ‘In most glorious style did the little Beagle enter the port and lower her sails alongside the Flagship … Whilst the Captain was away with the commanding officer, we tacked about the harbor & gained great credit from the manner in which the Beagle was manned & directed.’ As Philip Gidley King remembered it:

Though Mr Darwin knew little or nothing of nautical matters, on one day he volunteered his services to the First Lieutenant. The occasion was when the ship first entered Rio Janeiro. It was decided to make a display of smartness in shortening sail before the numerous men-of-war at the anchorage under the flags of all nations. The ship entered the harbour under every yard of canvas which could be spread upon her yards including studding sails aloft on both sides, the lively sea breeze which brought her in being right aft. Mr Darwin was told to hold to a main royal sheet in each hand and a top mast studding sail tack in his teeth. At the order ‘Shorten Sail’ he was to let go and clap on to any rope he saw was short-handed – this he did and enjoyed the fun of it, afterwards remarking ‘the feat could not have been performed without him’.⁵⁵

In view of the political instability at that period of Brazil and the newly liberated countries on its southern borders, the Royal Navy maintained a squadron of ships at the magnificent harbour of Rio de Janeiro for the general protection of British interests in South America. It was commanded by Admiral Sir Thomas Baker. While Charles was assisting the Beagle so skilfully to shorten sail, the Captain was receiving orders from the Commander-in-Chief for the exact position to be taken up by the Beagle and other ships of the squadron in case marines had to be landed to assist in quelling a mutiny that had broken out among the troops in the town. Fortunately the need did not arise, and all on the Beagle settled down happily to read their accumulated mail from home.

The next morning, Charles landed with the ship’s first official artist Augustus Earle at the Palace steps. Earle had once lived in Rio for some while, and after he had introduced Charles to the centre of the city, they found themselves ‘a most delightful house’ at Botafogo which would provide them with excellent lodgings. Its situation, as painted by Conrad Martens when he was passing through Rio a few months later (Plate 2), was an attractively rural one, but nowadays the shore of Botafogo is regrettably occupied by a sprawling network of multi-lane superhighways. The house was in due course also shared with ‘Miss Fuegia Basket, who’, remarked Charles, ‘daily increases in every direction except height’, with the Sergeant of the ship’s marines, and with young Philip Gidley King, who wrote of it with affection:

At Rio Janeiro Mr Darwin thoroughly enjoyed the new life in a tropical climate. Hiring a cottage at Botafogo, a lovely land-locked bay with a sandy beach of a dazzling whiteness, Mr Darwin took for one of his shore companions the writer, who from having been in the former voyage with his father although then of tender years was able to remember and to recount to the so far inexperienced philosopher his own adventures. “Come King” he would say “you have been round Cape Horn and I have not yet done so, but do not come your traveller’s yarns on me”. One of these was that he had seen whales jump out of the water all but their tails, another that he had seen ostriches swimming in salt water. For disbelieving these statements however, Mr Darwin afterwards made ample reparation. The first was verified one fine afternoon on the East coast of Tierra del Fuego. A large number of whales were around the ship, the Captain, the “Philosopher” and the Surveyors were on the poop, presently Mr Darwin’s arm was seized as a gigantic beast rose three fourths of his huge body out of the water. “Look Sir look! Will you believe me now?” was the exclamation of the hitherto discredited youth. “Yes! anything you tell me in future” was the quick reply of the kind-hearted naturalist.⁵⁵

It was in the Beagle Channel on 28 January 1833 that Charles was thus enlightened:

the day was overpowringly [sic] hot, so much so that our skin was burnt; this is quite a novelty in Tierra del F. The Beagle Channel is here very striking, the view both ways is not intercepted, & to the West extends to the Pacific. So narrow and straight a channell & in length nearly 120 miles, must be a rare phenomenon. We were reminded that it was an arm of the sea by the number of Whales, which were spouting in different directions: the water is so deep that one morning two monstrous whales were swimming within stone throw of the shore.⁵⁹

Charles at once set about organising an expedition on horseback to the Rio Macaé, some one hundred miles to the north-east of Rio. His ‘extraordinary & quixotic set of adventurers’ consisted firstly of an Irish businessman, Patrick Lennon, who had lived in Rio for twenty years and owned an estate near the mouth of the Macaé that he had not previously visited; he was accompanied by a nephew. Then there was Mr Lawrie, ‘a well informed clever Scotchman, selfish unprincipled man, by trade partly slave merchant partly Swindler’, with a friend who was apprentice to a druggist, and whose elder brother’s Brazilian father-in-law Senhor Manuel Figuireda owned a large estate on the Macaé at Socégo. As a guide for the party Charles took along a black boy. The first obstacle was to obtain passports for an excursion to the interior. The local officials were somewhat less than helpful, ‘but the prospect of wild forests tenanted by beautiful birds, Monkeys & Sloths, & Lakes by Cavies & Alligators, will make any naturalist lick the dust even from the foot of a Brazilian’.

The exotic cavalcade set out on 8 April, and Charles was entranced by the stillness of the woods – except for the large and brilliant butterflies which lazily fluttered about, with blue the prevailing tint – and by the infinite numbers of lianas and parasitical plants, whose beautiful flowers struck him as the most novel object to be seen in a tropical forest. In the evening the scene by the dimmed light of the moon was most desolate, with fireflies flitting by and the solitary snipe uttering its plaintive cry while the distant and sullen roar of the sea scarcely broke the quiet of the night. The inn at which they spent their first night sleeping on straw mats was a miserable one, though at others they fared sumptuously with wine and spirits at dinner, coffee in the evening, and fish for breakfast. The five days needed for the journey to the mouth of the Macaé were often strenuous, and the amount of labour that their horses could perform was impressive, even on the occasion when the riders had to swim alongside them to cross the Barro de St João.

On 13 April they rested at Senhor Figuireda’s luxurious fazenda at Socégo, where Charles was relieved to see how kindly the slaves were treated, and how happy they seemed. Two days later he had a very different impression of slavery when Mr Lennon threatened to sell at a public auction an illegitimate mulatto child to whom his agent was much attached, and even to take all the women and children from their husbands to sell them separately at the market in Rio. Despite his feeling that Mr Lennon was not at heart an inhumane person, Charles reflected ruefully on the strange and inexplicable effect that prevailing custom and self-interest might have on a man’s behaviour. It was agreed that Senhor Manuel should be asked to arbitrate in the quarrel, which he presumably did in favour of the slaves, although Charles did not report on the outcome. Charles returned to Socégo, where he spent the most enjoyable part of the whole expedition collecting insects and reptiles in the woods, and admiring the trees:

The forests here are ornamented by one of the most elegant, the Cabbage-Palm, with a stem so narrow that with the two hands it may be clasped, it waves its most elegant head from 30 to 50 feet above the ground. The soft part, from which the leaves spring, affords a most excellent vegetable. The woody creepers, themselves covered by creepers, are of great thickness, varying from 1 to nearly 2 feet in circumference. Many of the older trees present a most curious spectacle, being covered with tresses of a liana, which much resembles bundles of hay. If the eye is turned from the world of foliage above, to the ground, it is attracted by the extreme elegance of the leaves of numberless species of Ferns & Mimosas. Thus it is easy to specify individual objects of admiration; but it is nearly impossible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings which are excited; wonder, astonishment & sublime devotion fill & elevate the mind.

For the journey home, when Charles was accompanied only by Mr Lennon, the same route was followed, though back in Rio, having carelessly lost their passports, they had some difficulty in proving that their horses were not stolen. Charles returned to the Beagle, where he learnt that the surgeon Robert McCormick had been ‘invalided’, that is to say had quarrelled with the Captain and the First Lieutenant, and was about to go back to England on HMS Tyne. The news did not greatly distress Charles, for he had decided even before leaving Devonport that ‘my friend the Doctor is an ass … at present he is in great tribulation, whether his cabin shall be painted French Grey or a dead white – I hear little excepting this subject from him’. And at St Jago McCormick had revealed himself as ‘a philosopher of rather an antient date; at St Jago by his own account he made general remarks during the first fortnight & collected particular facts during the last’. Robert McCormick was an ambitious Scot, determined to make a career for himself as a naval surgeon, who had sailed to the Arctic in 1827 with William Edward Parry as assistant surgeon on the Hecla. His nose was put thoroughly out of joint on the Beagle by finding that Charles had been introduced by the Captain to look after natural history, one of the traditional responsibilities of the ship’s surgeon. He subsequently sailed to the Antarctic as surgeon on the Erebus, and took part in the search for Franklin in the Arctic in 1852–53. But when he finally retired in 1865, the professional recognition that he had sought for so long still eluded him. He was succeeded as acting surgeon on the Beagle by Benjamin Bynoe, with whom Charles remained on the best of terms for the rest of the voyage.

On 25 April Charles suffered on a small scale what he described as some of the horrors of a shipwreck, when two or three large waves swamped the boat from which he was landing his possessions to transfer them to Botafogo, though nothing was completely spoiled. The following day he wrote an account of the disaster to his sister Caroline, also reporting to her:

I send in a packet, my commonplace Journal. I have taken a fit of disgust with it & want to get it out of my sight. Any of you that like may read it, a great deal is absolutely childish. Remember however this, that it is written solely to make me remember this voyage, & that it is not a record of facts but of my thoughts, & in excuse recollect how tired I generally am when writing it … Be sure you mention the receiving of my journal, as anyhow to me it will be of considerable future interest as an exact record of all my first impressions, & such a set of vivid ones they have been must make this period of my life always one of interest to myself. If you will speak quite sincerely, I should be glad to have your criticisms. Only recollect the above mentioned apologies.⁶⁰

During the next few days Charles was taken by FitzRoy to dine more than once with Mr Aston, representative of the English government, at meals which to his surprise ‘from the absence of all form almost resembled a Cambridge party’. He also dined with the Admiral, Sir Thomas Baker, no doubt with the greater formality of the Navy, and was taken to watch the impressive spectacle of an official inspection of the seventy-four-gun battleship Warspite.

A week later the Beagle sailed back to Bahia to find an explanation for the discrepancy of four miles in the meridian distance between the Abrolhos Islands and Rio de Janeiro shown in Baron Roussin’s chart as compared with the Beagle’s measurements. In a private letter to FitzRoy, Beaufort later commended his ‘daring’ for thus having turned back without prior instruction from the Admiralty.⁶¹ It turned out that Baron Roussin’s placing of the Abrolhos was correct, but not that of Rio, confirming that FitzRoy’s twenty-two chronometers and his dependence on a connected chain of meridian distances was the most reliable method of finding the precise longitude. This information was duly conveyed to the French commander-in-chief at Rio.

A less happy piece of news was that three members of a party who had sailed in the ship’s cutter to the river Macacu shortly before the Beagle’s departure – an extraordinarily powerful seaman called Morgan, Boy Jones who had just been promised promotion, and Charles’s young friend Midshipman Musters – had been stricken with fatal attacks of malaria a few days later, and were buried at Bahia. FitzRoy considered that the danger of contracting the disease appeared to be greatest while sleeping, while Charles found it puzzling that the fever so often came on several days after the victim had returned to a seemingly pure atmosphere. The full details of the role of mosquitoes as the vector in the transmission of malaria were made clear by Sir Ronald Ross only in 1897.

For the next two months Charles assiduously explored Rio and the surrounding country, and on alternate days wrote up his notes and sorted out the specimens that he had collected, for he found that one hour’s collecting often kept him busy for the rest of the day. He noted that whereas ‘The naturalist in England enjoys in his walks a great advantage over others in frequently meeting something worthy of attention; here he suffers a pleasant nuisance in not being able to walk a hundred yards without being fairly tied to the spot by some new & wondrous creature.’ A discovery that particularly thrilled him was to find in the forest what was evidently a species of flatworm related to Cuvier’s Planaria, but which he thought was generally regarded as a strictly marine animal. He wrote:

June 17th. This very extraordinary animal was found, under the bark of a decaying tree, in the forest at a considerable elevation. The place was quite dry & no water at all near. Body soft, parenchymatous,* covered with slime (like snails & leaving a track), not much flattened. When fully extended, 2 & ¼ inches long: in broardest parts only .13 wide. Back arched, top rather flat; beneath, a level crawling surface (precisely resembles a gasteropode [snail], only not separated from the body), with a slightly projecting membranous edge. Anterior end extremely extensible, pointed lengthened; posterior half of body broardest, tail bluntly pointed.

Colours: back with glossy black stripe; on each side of this a primrose white one edged externally with black; these stripes reach to extremities, & become uniformly narrower. sides & foot dirty “orpiment orange”. From the elegance of shape & great beauty of colours, the animal had a very striking appearance.

The anterior extremity of foot rather grooved or arched. On its edge is a regular row of round black dots (as in marine Planariæ) which are continued round the foot, but not regularly; foot thickly covered with very minute angular white marks or specks. On the foot in centre, about 1/3 of length from the tail, is an irregular circular white space, free from the specks. Extending through the whole width of this, is a transverse slit, sides straight parallel, extremities rounded, 1/60th of inch long, tolerably apparent (i.e. with my very weak lens).⁶²

The colours in inverted commas quoted by Charles in this and other descriptions of his specimens were taken from a neat little colour atlas by Patrick Syme in the Beagle’s library, of which Charles made frequent use. The copy of this atlas that survived among his books at Down House in Kent is, however, spotless, so that the Beagle’s hard-worked copy evidently had to be replaced after his return to England. In a letter to Henslow begun on 23 July 1832, Charles said: ‘Amongst the lower animals, nothing has so much interested me as finding 2 species of elegantly coloured true Planariæ, inhabiting the dry forest! The false relation they bear to snails is the most extraordinary thing of the kind I have ever seen. In the same genus (or more truly family) some of the marine species possess an organization so marvellous that I can scarcely credit my eyesight.’⁶³ Henslow was unconvinced, and on page 5 of the edition of Charles’s letters to him printed for private distribution by the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1835, the word ‘true’ was omitted, and ‘(?)’ was added after ‘Planariæ’. Charles’s observations on the anatomy and behaviour of these flatworms were nevertheless mainly correct, except that he thought they fed on decayed wood, whereas in fact they are carnivorous.

Charles was taken hunting one day by a wealthy priest who had a pack of five exotically-named dogs that were released into a forest of huge trees and left to pursue their own small deer and other game. In the intervals, the hunters with guns shot toucans and beautiful little green parrots in a rather aimless fashion. Charles was taken to see a bearded monkey shot the previous day, but did not record having seen a live one.

Once again he was disappointed in the Brazilian birds, which made surprisingly little show in their native country. One of the most characteristic sounds in Rio today is the repeated call of the tyrantflycatchers, but they do not possess the harmonious voice of the crotophaga, related to the parrots, of which Charles brought back a specimen with a stomachful of insects.

Better vocalists were found elsewhere, for in torrents of rain that soaked the fields he found a toad that sang through its nose at a high pitch, and then an equally musical frog:

On the back, a band of “yellowish brown” width of head, sides copper yellow; abdomen silvery yellowish white slightly tuberculated: beneath the mouth, smooth dark yellow; under sides of legs leaden flesh colour. Can adhere to perpendicular surface of glass. The fields resound with the noise which this little animal, as it sits on a blade of grass about an inch from the water, emits. The note is very musical. I at first thought it must be a bird. When several are together they chirp in harmony; each beginning a lower note than the other, & then continuing upon two (I think these notes are thirds to each other).

In addition to its ability to climb up a sheet of glass, the musician had some interesting parasites on its skin, and these too were preserved for identification.

A favourite excursion made by Charles several times with friends from the Beagle was to climb to the summit of the Corcovado mountain, a huge mass of naked granite looking down on Rio, where a century later the huge statue of Christ would be erected. On 30 May, Charles took his mountain barometer with him, and determined the height of the mountain to be 2225 feet above sea level, though possibly the figure of 2330 feet obtained on another occasion by Captain P.P. King was more reliable.

It was while he was in Rio that Charles wrote to Henslow: ‘I am at present red-hot with spiders, they are very interesting, & if I am not mistaken, I have already taken some new genera.’ He had indeed, and one of his captures was a crab spider of the family Thomisidae:

Evidently by its four front strong equal legs being much longer than posterior; by its habits on a leaf of a tree, is a Laterigrade: It differs however most singularly from that tribe & is I think a new genus. Eyes 10 in number, (!?) anterior ones red, situated on two curved longitudinal lines, thus the central triangular ones on an eminence: Machoires rounded inclined: languettes bluntly arrow shaped: Cheliceres powerful with large aperture for poison. Abdomen encrusted & with 5 conical peaks: Thorax with one small one: Crotchets to Tarsi, very strong (& with 2 small corresponding ones beneath?) Colour snow white, except tarsi & half of leg bright yellow. also tops of abdominal points & line of eyes black. It must I think be new. Lithetron paradoxicus Darwin!!! Taken in the forest.⁶⁵

Charles’s occasional lapses into French in his notes were the consequence of his dependence on books by the encyclopédistes Cuvier, Lamarck, Lamouroux and others in the Beagle’s library, his favourite being the seventeen volumes of the Dictionnaire classique d’histoire naturelle, edited by Jean Baptiste Genevieve Marcellin Bory de Saint-Vincent.

Although spiders are important insect predators, Charles found that sometimes the tables were turned, for he came upon wasps known as mud daubers of the family Sphecidae that hunt spiders as food for their larvae. He wrote:

I have frequently observed these insects carrying dead spiders, even the powerful genus Mygalus, & have found the clay cells made for their larvæ, filled with dying & dead small spiders: to day (June 2d) I watched a contest between one of them & a large Lycosa. The insect dashed against the spider & then flew away; it had evidently mortially [sic] wounded its enemy with its sting; for the spider crawled a little way & then rolled down the hill & scrambled into a tuft of grass. The Hymenoptera [wasp] most assuredly again found out the spider by the power of smell; regularly making small circuits (like a dog) & rapidly vibrating its wings & antennæ: It was a most curious spectacle: the Spider had yet some life, & the Hymenop was most cautious to keep clear of the jaws; at last being stung twice more on under side of the thorax it became motionless. The hymenop. apparently ascertained this by repeatedly putting its head close to the spider, & then dragged away the heavy Lycosa with its mandibles. I then took them both.⁶⁵

‘Whilst on board the Beagle,’ wrote Charles in his Autobiography, ‘I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality.’ So at this time he had not yet begun to think seriously about the manner in which new species of animals might come into being, and his orthodoxy included a belief in a world tenanted by constant species that had originated at specific centres of creation. Since he was well-versed by now in the first two volumes of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, this does not of course mean that he subscribed to the absolute truth of the first book of Genesis, nor to the accuracy of Bishop Usher’s calculations of the age of the earth. But he had been impressed at Cambridge by William Paley’s argument in his Natural Theology that in looking at the living world ‘The marks of design are too strong to be gotten over. Design must have had a designer. That designer must have been a person. That person is God.’ In due course his faith in Paley waned, but as will be seen he continued to speak of a Creator in his notes until 1836, so that specifically on the evolutionary front his thoughts had not yet moved far when he was in Brazil.

All the same, he had already made significant advances in two important biological fields of which he was one of the founding fathers. Thus from the very beginning of the voyage he regarded the behaviour of the animals he observed as equal in importance to the anatomical differences between them in distinguishing between species. A good example was provided by his comments on the butterfly Papilio feronia:

This insect is not uncommon & generally frequents the Orange groves; it is remarkable in several respects. It flies high & continually settles on the trunks of trees; invariably with its head downwards & with its wings expanded or opened to beyond the horizontal plane. It is the only butterfly I ever saw make use of its legs in running, this one will avoid being caught by shuffling to one side. Some time ago I saw several pairs, I presume males & females, of butterflies chasing each other, & which from appearance & habits were I am sure the same species as this. Strange as it may sound, they when fluttering about emitted a noise somewhat similar to cocking a small pistol; a sort of a click. I observed it repeatedly. June 28th. In same place I observed one of these butterflies resting as described on a trunk of tree; another happening to fly past, immediately they chased each other, emitting (& there could be no mistake the space being open) the peculiar noise: this is continued for some time & is more like a small toothed wheel passing under a spring pawl. – The noise would be heard about 20 yards distant. This fact would appear to be new.⁶⁶

A preliminary examination of a specimen of the butterfly in 1837 by G.R. Waterhouse at the London Zoological Society provided no explanation for the source of the peculiar noise, but a few years later it was found by another entomologist that it was produced by a sort of drum at the base of the fore wings, together with a screw-like diaphragm in the interior.

Another important branch of biology in which Charles was a leading pioneer, along with Linnaeus, Buffon and Humboldt, is the study of mutual relations between animals and their environment, for which the term ‘ecology’ was introduced in 1873. Here too, Charles’s basically new way of thinking was apparent from the first in his notes. Summarising his general observations on what he had seen in Rio, he wrote:

I could not help noticing how exactly the animals & plants in each region are adapted to each other. Every one must have noticed how Lettuces & Cabbages suffer from the attacks of Caterpillars & Snails. But when transplanted here in a foreign clime, the leaves remain as entire as if they contained poison. Nature, when she formed these animals & these plants, knew they must reside together.

Referring to collections of insects he had made on the shore behind the Sugar Loaf in Rio, he said that since the situation was much the same as that of Barmouth when he was collecting there in August 1828, many of the species would be closely allied. On another occasion he wrote:

In my geological notes I have mentioned the lagoons on the coast which contain either salt or fresh water. The Lagoa near the Botanic Garden is one of this class. The water is not so salt as the sea, for only once in the year a passage is cut for sake of the fishes. The beach is composed of large grains of quartz & very clean. If cemented into a breccia or sandstone it would precisely resemble a rock at Bahia containing marine shells. A small Turbo [a turban snail] appeared the only proper inhabitant, & thus differed from the lagoons on the Northern coast in the absence of those large bodies of Bivalves. I was surprised on the borders to see a few Hydrophili [water beetles] inhabiting this salt water, & some Dolimedes [a nursery web spider] running on the surface.

CHAPTER 7

An Unquiet Trip from Monte Video to Buenos Aires

At nine o’clock in the morning on 5 July the Beagle sailed out of the harbour at Rio on a gentle breeze, hailed by a salute of hearty cheers from the crews of HMS Warspite and HMS Samarang. FitzRoy noted with some satisfaction that ‘Strict etiquette might have been offended at such a compliment to a little ten-gun brig, or indeed to any vessel unless she were going out to meet an enemy, or were returning into port victorious: but although not about to encounter a foe, our lonely vessel was going to undertake a task laborious, and often dangerous, to the zealous execution of which the encouragement of our brother-seamen was no trifling enducement.’

For the next three weeks the Beagle sailed on to the south, sometimes in light winds when progress was disappointingly slow, sometimes in gales when even the sight of a whale possessed little interest to Charles’s jaundiced eyes, but best when the studding sails were ‘alow & aloft – that is wind abaft the beam & favourable’. On the morning of 14 July Charles noted:

I was much interested by watching a large herd of Grampuses, which followed the ship for some time. They were about 15 feet in length, & generally rose together, cutting & splashing the water with great violence. In the distance some whales were seen blowing. All these have been the black whale. The Spermaceti is the sort which the Southern Whalers pursue.

The grampuses, which on this occasion were genuine ones, were probably a group of juvenile pilot whales, totally black in colour, with bulging foreheads full of sperm oil.

Four days later, Charles wrote:

A wonderful shoal of Porpoises, at least many hundreds in number, crossed the bows of our vessel. The whole sea in places was furrowed by them. They proceeded by jumps in which the whole body was exposed, & as hundreds thus cut the water it presented a most extraordinary spectacle. When the ship was running 9 knots these animals could with the greatest ease cross & recross our bows & then dash away right ahead, thus showing off to us their great strength & activity.

The Beagle sailed on in the variable weather characteristic of the entrance to the Rio Plata. Close to the mouth of the river on a particularly dirty night, the ship was surrounded by penguins and seals which made such curious noises that the Master reported to the First Lieutenant that he had heard cattle lowing on the shore. On the morning of 26 July, the Beagle’s anchoring at Monte Video was, according to Charles, quickly followed by the arrival alongside of six heavily-armed boats from the frigate HMS Druid, containing forty marines and a hundred sailors. The frigate’s Captain Hamilton explained that the current military government had just seized four hundred horses belonging to a British subject, and that he aimed to provide sufficient visible support for the opposition party to bring about a restitution of the horses.* It seemed that such disputes were usually won without bloodshed by the side that succeeded in looking the stronger. This episode was an eye-opener for Charles on the vagaries of South American politics, but FitzRoy did not regard the incident as worthy of mention in his account of the day, merely recording that he was occupied with observations for his chronometers, and preparing for surveying the coasts south of the Rio Plata.

On the following morning, FitzRoy and Charles landed on Rat Island, where one of them took sights, while the other found, but did not preserve, a species of legless lizard known as a skink. On 28 July Charles visited the Mount, the little hill 450 feet high that dominated the district and gave Monte Video its name. He decided that the view from the summit was the most uninteresting that he had ever seen – like Cambridgeshire but without even any trees.

Two days later, FitzRoy got wind of the remains of some hydrographical information collected by Spain that was preserved in the archives of Buenos Aires, and on 2 August the Beagle sailed to the south bank of the Rio Plata in search of it. As explained by Charles, they had a disconcerting reception:

We certainly are a most unquiet ship; peace flies before our steps. On entering the outer roadstead, we passed a Buenos Ayres guard-ship. When abreast of her she fired an empty gun, we not understanding this sailed on, & in a few minutes another discharge was accompanied by the whistling of a shot over our rigging. Before she could get another gun ready we had passed her range. When we arrived at our anchorage, which is more than three miles distant from the landing place, two boats were lowered, & a large party started in order to stay some days in the city. Wickham went with us, & intended immediately going to Mr Fox, the English minister, to inform him of the insult offered to the British flag. When close to the shore, we were met by a Quarantine boat which said we must all return on board, to have our bill of health inspected, from fears of the Cholera. Nothing which we could say about being a man of war, having left England 7 months & lying in an open roadstead, had any effect. They said we ought to have waited for a boat from the guard-ship & that we must pull the whole distance back to the vessel, with the wind dead on end against us & a strong tide running in. During our absence, a boat had come with an officer whom the Captain soon dispatched with a message to his Commander to say ‘He was sorry he was not aware he was entering an uncivilized port, or he would have had his broardside ready for anwering his shot’. When our boats & the health one came alongside, the Captain immediately gave orders to get under weigh & return to M Video. At the same time sending to the Governor, through the Spanish officer, the same messuages [sic] which he had sent to the Guard-ship, adding that the case should be throughily [sic] investigated in other quarters. We then loaded & pointed all the guns on one broadside, & ran down close alongside the guard-ship. Hailed her & said that when we again entered the port, we would be prepared as at present & if she dared to fire a shot we would send our whole broardside into her rotten hulk.* We are now sailing quietly down the river. From M Video the Captain intends writing to Mr Fox & to the Admiral, so that they may take effective steps to prevent our Flag being again insulted in so unprovoked a manner.

The following day, after another tricky passage along the muddy and winding channel of the Rio Plata, with banks often marked by old wrecks – ‘it is an ill wind which blows nobody any good’ said Charles – the Beagle arrived at Monte Video after sunset, and the Captain immediately went on board the Druid. He returned with the news that the Druid would next morning sail for Buenos Aires, and demand an apology for the guard-ship’s conduct. Charles noted belligerently, ‘Oh I hope the Guard-ship will fire a gun at the frigate; if she does, it will be her last day above water.’

A fortnight later the Druid returned from Buenos Aires with a long apology from the government for the insult offered to the Beagle. The captain of the guard-ship had immediately been arrested, and it was left to the British Consul whether he should any longer retain his commission. It seemed nevertheless that the Argentinians had voiced some complaint against FitzRoy’s undiplomatic language, for reporting later to the Hydrographer in London on his conduct of the affair, FitzRoy wrote:

With reference to the expressions which have offended the Buenos Airean Government, I beg to inform you, and I request that you will make it known, if necessary, that I did not say, that ‘I should go to some other country where the government was more civilized’, but that my expression to the health officer was, ‘Say to your government that I shall return to a more civilized country where boats are sent more frequently than balls.’ In hailing the guard vessel I did not in any way allude to the government and my words to her commander were ‘If you dare to fire another shot at a British man-of-war you may expect to have your hulk sunk, and if you fire at this vessel, I will return a broadside for every shot!’.⁶⁷

In the meantime, further trouble of a different kind had arisen in Monte Video. On 5 August, Charles wrote in his journal:

This has been an eventful day in the history of the Beagle. At 10 oclock in the morning the Minister for the present military government came on board & begged for assistance against a serious insurrection of some black troops. Cap FitzRoy immediately went ashore to ascertain whether it was a party affair, or that the inhabitants were really in danger of having their houses ransacked. The head of the Police (Damas) has continued to power through both governments, & is considered as entirely neutral; being applied to, he gave it as his opinion that it would be doing a service to the state to land our force. Whilst this was going on ashore, the Americans landed their boats & occupied the Custom House. Immediately the Captain arrived at the mole, he made us the signal to hoist out & man our boats. In a very few minutes, the Yawl, Cutter, Whaleboat & Gig were ready with 52 men heavily armed with Muskets, Cutlasses & Pistols. After waiting some time on the pier Signor Dumas arrived & we marched to a central fort, the seat of government. During this time the insurgents had planted artillery to command some of the streets, but otherwise remained quiet. They had previously broken open the Prison & armed the prisoners. The chief cause of apprehension was owing to their being in possession of the citadel which contains all the ammunition. It is suspected that all this disturbance is owing to the mæneuvring of the former constitutional government. But the politicks of the place are quite unintelligible: it has always been said that the interests of the soldiers & the present government are identical, & now it would seem to be the reverse. Capt. FitzRoy would have nothing to do with all this: he would only remain to see that private property was not attacked. If the National band were not rank cowards, they might at once seize the citadel & finish the business; instead of this, they prefer protecting themselves in the fortress of St. Lucia. Whilst the different parties were trying to negociate matters, we remained at our station & amused ourselves by cooking beefsteaks in the Courtyard. At sun-set the boats were sent on board & one returned with warm clothing for the men to bivouac during the night. As I had a bad headache, I also came & remained on board. The few left in the Ship under the command of Mr Chaffers [the Master] have been the most busily engaged of the whole crew. They have triced up the Boarding netting, loaded & pointed the guns, & cleared for action. We are now at night in a high state of preparation so as to make the best defence possible, if the Beagle should be attacked. To obtain ammunition could be the only possible motive. 6th. The boats have returned. Affairs in the city now more decidedly show a party spirit, & as the black troops are enclosed in the citadel by double the number of armed citizens, Capt FitzRoy deemed it advisable to withdraw his force. It is probable in a very short time the two adverse sides will come to an encounter under such circumstances. Capt FitzRoy being in possession of the central fort would have found it very difficult to have preserved his character of neutrality. There certainly is a great deal of pleasure in the excitement of this sort of work – quite sufficient to explain the reckless gayety with which sailors undertake even the most hazardous attacks. Yet as time flies, it is evil to waste so much in empty parade.

FitzRoy’s withdrawal was followed by a fair amount of skirmishing and continued disorder. The military governor, Juan Antonio Lavalleja, was the man who had first established the independence of Uruguay in 1828. When he entered the town of Monte Video, he was said by Charles to have been well received by everybody except for his own black troops. He threatened to expel them from the citadel, and planted some guns to command the gate. During the night the blacks then made a sally, volleys of musketry were heard in the city, and it seemed on the Beagle that there might have been heavy fighting. But in fact not a single person was wounded, because according to Charles both parties were determined not to come within musket range either of one another or of the black troops. The next day, support for Lavalleja quickly evaporated, and he made a strategic retreat from the scene, leaving the field to his rival the former president, Don Fructuoso Rivera. Fierce party quarrels continued to take place in the town, and until 12 August the shops were all shut and the inhabitants were obliged to keep within their houses. Don Fructuoso then reappeared, and restoration of the constitutional government was proclaimed. Two days later the President made his formal re-entry into the town, and his government was considered to be in office once again. It was reported to Charles, perhaps by the merchant Mr Parry with whom he had earlier dined, that the spectacle was a magnificent one, with 1800 wild gaucho (Argentinian cowboy) cavalry in support, many of whom were curiously-dressed Indians with splendid horses.

FitzRoy was pleased to be told by the principal persons whose lives and property were threatened that the presence of the Beagle’s crewmen had certainly prevented bloodshed. Charles concluded that ‘One is shocked at the bloody revolutions in Europe, but after seeing to what an extent such imbecile changes can proceed, it is hard to determine which of the two is most to be dreaded.’ Considering that like patriots in neighbouring countries, Lavalleja and his predecessors had had a severe struggle against the Spanish overlords, followed by fights against both Portuguese and Brazilian forces trying to take advantage of the weakness of the small Republica Oriental del Uruguay, Charles was perhaps being rather severe. And Uruguay remained for some years to come in a state of intermittent civil war between Lavalleja’s supporters, named the Blancos because they carried white flags, and the Colorados once led by Don Fructuoso, with red ones.

In his general notes on what wildlife he had seen in Monte Video, Charles recorded that:

Birds are abundant on the plains & are brilliantly coloured. Starlings, thrushes, shrikes, larks & partridges are the commonest. Snipes here frequently rise & fly up in great circles; in their flight, as they descend, they make that peculiar buzzing noise, which few which breed in England are known to do. On the sand-banks on the coast are large flocks of Rhynchops [scissor-beaks]; these birds are generally supposed to be the inhabitants of the Tropics. Every evening they fly out in flocks to the sea & return to the beach in the morning. I have seen them at night, especially at Bahia Blanca, flying round a boat in a wild rapid irregular manner, something in same manner as Caprimulgus [nightjar] does. I cannot imagine what animals they catch with their singular bills.

When next he encountered Rhyncops he had more to say about the function of their beaks.

During the last few days before departing on the Beagle’s first cruise, Charles’s most notable achievement was, after a long chase among the rocks at the Mount, to shoot through the head a large female capybara, in structure a huge guinea-pig, in habits a water rat. She weighed ninety-eight pounds, and could not readily be preserved apart from a tick crawling on her skin. He also found two more new species of turbellarian worm under dry stones on the Mount, collected some elegant snakes and frogs, and as usual captured a host of spiders and beetles.

CHAPTER 8

Digging up Fossils in the Cliffs at Bahia Blanca

The Beagle was now ready to proceed on her first cruise to the south, surveying the coastal waters between Buenos Aires and Bahia Blanca. At first the steep waves in the shallow water at the mouth of the Rio Plata caused so much spray to break over the ship that Charles had seldom felt a more disagreeable sensation in his stomach. In more open water after rounding Point Piedras, matters improved, and on 24 August in ten fathoms of water slightly north of Cape Corrientes in latitude 37o26´S, Charles found ‘incredible numbers’ of the very simple animal that he had encountered earlier in the voyage, north of St Jago (see p.54) and off the Abrolhos Islands, and had been unable to identify. This time he was able to describe in some detail the anatomy of these arrow worms or chaetognaths as they came to be called, and twelve years later published a short paper about them.⁶⁸

Two days later, in latitude 38o20´S, Charles found some of what he called corallines, the insignificant but exceedingly numerous little organisms of doubtful nature that encrusted rocks and fronds of seaweed like a moss growing on the surface, to which he had been introduced by Robert Grant at Edinburgh (see p.6). On examination of the specimens under his microscope, he immediately and correctly identified them as closely related to what would today be called ‘bryozoans’ of genus Flustra

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