The Voyage of the Beagle

Darwin is a very sensible, hard-working man and a very pleasant messmate. I never saw a ‘shore-going fellow’ come into the ways of a ship so soon and so thoroughly as Darwin. I cannot give a stronger proof of his good sense and disposition than by saying that ‘Everyone respects and likes him.’

Charles Darwin was selected by Captain Robert FitzRoy as Beagle’s naturalist, and as his messmate and companion. Darwin was a landsman of a comparable social class to FitzRoy, and one in whom he could confide without breaking British naval protocol.

The remarks and information contained in letters and accounts by the key participants of the Beagle expedition reveal vivid insights into FitzRoy’s personality and behaviour. He was a man who suffered extreme mood swings and was feared by some for his hot temper. The overwhelming evidence, during and after the voyage, points to a man who suffered from a medical condition akin to clinical depression. It is an extraordinary coincidence that Pringle Stokes, Beagle’s first captain, and Owen Stanley, the captain of one of her sister-ships, also suffered from mental disorders and depression.

Charles Darwin, watercolour by George Richmond, 1840. The artist was part of an artistic group known as The Ancients, which included Edward Calvert (1799–1883) and William Blake (1757–1827), who was also a celebrated poet, printmaker and visionary.

FitzRoy had taken over command from Beagle’s first captain during her first expedition. He occupied Captain Pringle Stokes’ cabin, the confined space where for a fortnight Stokes had incarcerated himself, and then placed a pistol to his head and pulled the trigger. As a self-aware, highly sensitive and intelligent man, FitzRoy would surely have seen in Darwin someone who could admirably fulfill a dual role: naturalist and gentleman-companion. But to date no written evidence has come to light to confirm that these thoughts were actually on the captain’s mind.

For a professional naval officer still in the prime of life it is hardly surprising that FitzRoy makes no reference in the Narrative to his depressive nature and Darwin’s dual role onboard. He focuses solely on Darwin’s position as a naturalist, writing:

Anxious that no opportunity of collecting useful information, during the voyage, should be lost; I proposed to the Hydrographer [Beaufort] that some well-educated and scientific person should be sought for 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. Captain Beaufort approved of the suggestion, and wrote to Professor Peacock, of Cambridge [professor of mathematics], who consulted with a friend, Professor Henslow, and he named Mr. Charles Darwin, grandson of Dr. Darwin the poet, as a young man of promising ability, extremely fond of geology, and indeed all branches of natural history. In consequence an offer was made to Mr. Darwin to be my guest on board, which he accepted conditionally; permission was obtained for his embarkation, and an order given by the Admiralty that he should be borne on the ship’s books for provisions. The conditions asked by Mr. Darwin were, that he should be at liberty to leave the Beagle and retire from the Expedition when he thought proper, and that he should pay a fair share of the expenses of my table.

In March 1840 the celebrated portraitist George Richmond (1809–1896) was commissioned by Darwin’s uncle to paint watercolour portraits of Charles and his wife Emma shortly after their marriage. They are still hanging in the living room of their family home at Down House in Kent. Darwin, aged 31, has an open, fresh face, and although sideburns are evident, he is notably lacking the later trademark full beard. The firmly fixed and animated eyes reveal a lively and enquiring mind. He would benefit from the Beagle voyage, reaping fame and fortune. His theories on natural selection – what became known as the ‘survival of the fittest’ (a phrase coined by the British economist Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) who was inspired by Darwin) – derived directly from his observations and collections gathered during the expedition. Darwin would become one of the world’s most famous men of science.

FitzRoy was a firm believer in the pseudo-science of phrenology, invented by the German physician Franz Joseph Gall (1758–1828) around 1800. Gall originally called it cranioscopy and it was later renamed phrenology: FitzRoy called it ‘bumpology’. Phrenology advocated that it was possible to determine someone’s character and personality from the shape of their head by reading the ‘bumps’ and ‘fissures’. FitzRoy was initially wary of the shape of Darwin’s nose but eventually decided he would be suitable for the shipboard position.

On the face of it Darwin seemed an unlikely choice for such an appointment as, by his own admission, he had squandered his time at Cambridge, where his interests were predominantly in hunting and shooting. He went up to Christ’s College for the purpose of becoming a clergyman. Earlier he had failed to qualify as a doctor because he was unable to stomach the anatomy lessons and operations at Edinburgh University.

Dr Robert Waring Darwin, by Ellen Sharples. The doctor was so large, a servant had to enter a patient’s home before him and jump up and down on the floorboards to ensure they would withstand his weight.

Darwin’s father, Robert, was physically the largest man Darwin had ever seen. He was about 6 feet 2 inches in height, and well before middle age he tipped the scales at 24 stones. The weight gain continued apace. He was a highly respected, kindly, intuitive and very successful society doctor and financier, with significant interests in farm estates, railways and canals, who was very concerned about his sons’ future prospects. In fact Charles, and his siblings were remarkably fortunate in that theoretically they never had to work for a living.

Charles recorded his father’s anxieties and concerns in his Autobiography (begun in 1876 and published posthumously in 1887):

When I left school I was for my age neither high nor low in it; and I believe that I was considered by all my masters and by father a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect. To my deep mortification my father once said to me, ‘You care for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family’.

Charles Robert Darwin was born on 12 February 1809 at The Mount, a large Georgian house overlooking a bend in the River Severn in Shrewsbury. He was the second son and fifth (of six) children to Dr Robert Waring Darwin (1766–1848) and Susannah Darwin, née Wedgwood (1765–1817). He was the grandson of Dr Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802), a larger-than-life character in every respect, who FitzRoy called ‘Dr Darwin the poet’, and of Josiah Wedgwood I (1730–1795), who established the famous pottery factory at Etruria near Stoke-on-Trent. The factory is credited with the industrialization of the production of pottery. They were renowned gentleman scientists, inventors and original thinkers. Poetry was only a small part of Erasmus’s many and varied interests.

Dr Erasmus Darwin, oil after Joseph Wright of Derby. Derby captured on canvas many of the people, and experiments, involved in the early phases of the Industrial Revolution.

Darwin’s grandfathers were both Fellows of the Royal Society and founding members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham (so-called because they met on nights when the full moon provided light for the journey home). In the late 1700s a small group of ‘Lunaticks’ assembled for what Erasmus called ‘a little philosophical laughing’. They included Matthew Boulton (1728–1809), the engineer and manufacturer, Joseph Priestley (1733–1804), the chemist who isolated oxygen, and James Watt (1736–1819), the Scottish inventor of the steam engine.

Erasmus’s book Zoonomia or the Laws of Organic Life, published in 1794–6, pre-dated by several years the ground-breaking publication by the French scholar Jean-Baptist Lamarck (1744–1829), Professor of Zoology at the National History Museum in Paris, in rejecting the doctrine of creationism. Erasmus was one of the first scientists to argue that organisms and species could be gradually transformed through the influence of their needs. This concept would have a significant influence on Darwin’s theories. Erasmus was painted by his friend, Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–1797), who was also one of his patients. Many of Wright’s celebrated pictures related to experiments performed by members of the Lunar Society.

Josiah Wedgwood’s eldest child, Susannah, had married Darwin’s father. Susannah’s brother, Josiah Wedgwood II (1769–1843), was affectionately known in the Darwin household as Uncle Jos. He was the best friend of Charles’s father and he took over the management of the pottery business. But Uncle Jos lacked his father’s business acumen and he was fortunate to have Robert Darwin to provide assistance and financial help. Robert lent him £30,000 for the purchase of the Elizabethan mansion of Maer Hall in Staffordshire. Charles was a regular visitor, where he indulged his passion for hunting and shooting. There was a lake and about a thousand acres of land. For Charles it was ‘Bliss Castle’.

Another place Charles enjoyed visiting was Woodhouse, a short ride north of Shrewsbury, and the home of the Owen family. William Owen was a friend of his father and a business client, too. He was fond of Charles, and the boy loved the informality of the household. William encouraged him to develop his marksmanship skills, and one of his daughters, Fanny, a lively, pretty girl, caught Charles’s eye. They corresponded amicably but before he returned from the Beagle voyage Charles was dismayed to learn that she had married.

The Wedgwood Family, oil painting dated 1780, by George Stubbs (1724–1806). Josiah Wedgwood I and his wife are portrayed to the far right. Darwin’s mother, Susannah, is on the horse in the centre, and next to her looking out is the young man Josiah II, or ‘Uncle Jos’, the father of Darwin’s wife Emma. Wedgwood liked the horses but not the portraits of his family, which he regarded as ‘wooden mannequins’

Charles Darwin and Catty by Ellen Sharples. Painted before his mother’s death, Darwin is believed to be around 7 years old. He holds a plant alongside his youngest sister.

In July 1817 his mother died. Charles was too young to remember much about her. He was sent to board at Shrewsbury School, which he hated, and where he failed to shine academically. Fortunately it was only a short run from his home and he returned as often as he could. At that time the curriculum focused on the classics, and science was not taught there; however Charles, and his older brother Erasmus (1804–1881), set up a ‘Laboratory’ in an outhouse of their family home where they performed makeshift experiments examining the properties and compositions of various domestic items. To do this, Charles often subjected the material to a naked flame, which earned him the childhood nickname ‘Gas’. Erasmus went up to Edinburgh to study medicine but his letters home to Charles encouraged him to continue with the experiments.

By all account at this stage of his life there is no evidence of the genial Charles (or as his father and family called him, Charley or Bobby) that would later emerge. He was an inward-looking, slightly stammering child, like his father and grandfather before him, who preferred to live in a semi-fantasy world. At University his personality radically changed and he became more extrovert in nature.

View of Christ’s College, Cambridge by John Le Keux from Memorials of Cambridge (1837). An earlier alumnus was John Milton (1608–1674), celebrated for his epic poem ‘Paradise Lost’. Darwin was inseparable from the copy he took with him on the voyage.

A charming double portrait by the (British-born) artist Ellen Sharples (1769–1849), who was active in America, shows Charles with his youngest sister, Emily Catherine (Catty), clutching a plant, painted the year before their mother’s premature death. The Mount boasted an impressive collection of rare floral specimens. Darwin’s older sisters, Marianne, Caroline and Susan, spoiled and mothered him. That he was close to all of them is evident from the large number of detailed and affectionate letters sent home from the Beagle. His father was a great talker, who liked to dominate conversations. But he was not a letter writer and so his messages were conveyed via his daughters’ epistles.

Robert Darwin was determined that Charles should study medicine and sent him to Edinburgh University, where he was to accompany Erasmus who was pursuing the same goal. In fact, Charles was named after his father’s elder brother, who had also studied medicine at Edinburgh but died of an infection caught through performing an autopsy. Erasmus graduated, although he later abandoned the profession, much to his father’s displeasure, and never secured gainful employment. Charles had no interest in becoming a doctor. He, among many others, was bored by the lessons of the Scottish anatomy teacher, Alexander Monro. Robert himself had been forced into the profession by his own father. He detested the sight of blood but he continued as a doctor, although the money was but a small proportion of his substantial annual income derived from various financial and property investments.

Charles’s time at Edinburgh was not completely wasted. He and Erasmus enjoyed the chemistry lectures and demonstrations given by Professor Thomas Charles Hope (1766–1844). Charles was taught taxidermy by John Edmonstone, the freed black slave from Guyana, South America, who in turn had learned his craft from the naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton (1782–1865). Edmonstone fired up Darwin’s imagination with images of the tropical rainforests of his homeland. He attended Robert Jameson’s (1774–1854) extra-curricular lectures, which included botany, geology, hydrography, meteorology, mineralogy and zoology. Charles’s personal, annotated copy of Jameson’s Manual of Mineralogy (1821) became an important influence on his revolutionary theories. But he was not impressed with the Scottish Professor, describing him as ‘that old brown dry stick’, although the survival of his undergraduate notes reveals that the lessons were, according to Janet Browne, the acclaimed Darwin biographer, ‘both comprehensive and useful’.

Charles was an active member of the Plinian Society where he met Dr Robert Grant, a lecturer on invertebrate animals. Many years later he recalled that:

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.

A case of beetles from Down House. Darwin was passionate about collecting beetles. Albert Way, a fellow Cambridge student, portrayed Darwin in two light-hearted pen-and-ink caricatures riding atop a beetle. They are now in the Cambridge University Library.

Darwin had neither the aptitude nor the inclination to pursue a medical career. He abandoned his studies at Edinburgh and, after what must have been difficult discussions with his father, it was mutually agreed that he would pursue the career choice of a country clergyman. In January 1828 Charles went up to Christ’s College, Cambridge, to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree, the entry level to study Holy Orders. In contrast to his childhood personality Darwin by this time was an amiable and affable student and had a remarkable capacity to develop and maintain friends. No doubt Charles would have been popular with his parishioners and concurrently could have pursued scientific interests. However, had he pursued this vocational path he would almost certainly not be the household name of today.

At Cambridge Darwin continued his interests in hunting and shooting. He was also passionate about beetles: ‘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’.

Reverend John Stevens Henslow, oil painting by an anonymous nineteenth-century artist. Darwin was Henslow’s favourite pupil, and was the man responsible for encouraging Darwin to take up the position of naturalist and gentlemen-companion aboard the Beagle. The portrait is possibly by Thomas Herbert Maguire (1821–1895), the artist who produced many lithographs after his own portraits. He painted a series of ‘Ipswich Museum Portraits’ in 1851. The Ipswich Museum was established in 1847 as a broad-based natural history collection. Its origins and development owed much to Henslow, who was elected President in 1850.

Darwin enjoyed the companionship of his cousin William Darwin Fox (1805–1880), who was also studying at Cambridge and who shared Charles’s passion for insects. But without doubt the most influential figure within the University was the Reverend John Stevens Henslow (1796–1861), Professor of Botany. It was Henslow who recommended Darwin for the Beagle’s second voyage. Darwin wrote in his Autobiography of his friendship with Henslow:

During the latter half of my time at Cambridge [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 judgement was excellent, and his whole mind well-balanced; but I do not suppose that anyone would say that he possessed much original genius.

During the early years of the nineteenth century the study of Natural History was still in its relative infancy. Although Darwin had no formal qualifications in these spheres, his knowledge was significant. Henslow believed that he possessed the right qualities to benefit from and significantly contribute to scientific research. As Richard Darwin Keynes aptly surmised, Darwin 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’.

Henslow also encouraged Darwin’s interest in geology and Adam Sedgwick (1785–1873), Professor of Geology at Cambridge, became another prominent figure in Darwin’s educational development. Darwin had just returned from a field excursion with Sedgwick in Wales, in preparation for a proposed Tenerife expedition, when the news of FitzRoy’s search for a ‘naturalist’ broke.

Darwin, like FitzRoy, was a keen reader. They had both read the travel writings of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859). For Darwin, Humboldt’s vivid accounts of faraway places fired up his imagination, inspiring him to make plans for an expedition with class mates to explore the island of Tenerife and further afield. Humboldt was a German (Prussian) aristocrat and a remarkably gifted naturalist and explorer, who between 1799 and 1804 had travelled to Latin America and was the first to explore and describe it from a scientific viewpoint. Writing in his Diary Darwin notes: ‘At present I talk, & think & dream of a scheme I have almost hatched of going to the Canary Islands…. I have long had a wish of seeing Tropical scenery & vegetation: & according to Humboldt, Teneriffe [one of the Canary Islands] is a very pretty specimen’.

FitzRoy’s request gave Darwin the opportunity to turn some of his dreams into reality, although it forced him to abandon his plans of an independent expedition to Tenerife. Henslow’s parting gift to Darwin before he departed on the Beagle 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. It was inscribed, ‘J. S. Henslow to his friend C. Darwin on his departure from England upon a voyage round the world. 21 Sept. 1831’. Darwin made many references to Humboldt in his letters, journals and accounts. His first letter to Henslow from Rio de Janeiro, 18 May 1832, was full of youthful enthusiasm: ‘At Santa Cruz, whilst looking amongst the clouds for the Peak & repeating to myself Humbold’s sublime descriptions’.

But before Darwin could accept the shipboard position he needed the approval of his father. Initially Robert thought that such a venture would be a worthless and highly dangerous enterprise and could be of no benefit to his son. Fortunately he was persuaded by Uncle Jos, who in letter form had weighed up the pros and cons of the venture. Uncle Jos believed that the ‘pursuit of natural history, although certainly not professional, [was] very suitable for a clergyman’.

Alexander von Humboldt, oil by Friedrich Georg Weitsch (1758–1828) painted in 1806. Darwin idolized Humboldt as a student. His multi-volume work Kosmos (unfinished at his death) helped to popularize science.

Darwin, following his father’s wishes, had initially written to turn down the position. There was a rival candidate, Leonard Jenyns, who was a clerical naturalist and vicar of Swaffham Bulbeck near Cambridge. He was Henslow’s brother-in-law. Jenyns had considered the post carefully and decided that he preferred to remain within his parish. Henslow himself had also pondered the position but acknowledged that he was probably too old, being in his mid-thirties and with responsibilities to his wife and newborn child. So Darwin was back in the running and, with his father now offering full moral and financial support, he eventually secured the position.

…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 y^r being a finished Naturalist, but as amply qualified for collecting, observing, & noting anything worthy to be noted in Natural History…Capt F [FitzRoy] 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.

Interestingly in the same letter Henslow believed that the voyage would last only two years and advised Darwin to take plenty of books with him. The voyage would last the best part of five years.

Henslow encouraged Darwin to prepare and equip himself for the expedition advising on the purchase of various scientific instruments. He also demonstrated some of them to Darwin. On his recommendation Darwin had already acquired a compass and clinometer combined within one case for the proposed Tenerife trip. The clinometer was used to measure the angle of a slope, and the inclination of rock beds. It is now on display at Down House. FitzRoy was of the mistaken understanding that Darwin favoured geology and his gift to him on Beagle’s departure from Plymouth was a copy of Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, Volume I (1830). Darwin acquired the second and third volumes during the voyage. The reason why Darwin’s selection to the Beagle post turned out to be such an inspired decision was because he was not a specialist in any particular field. He had an open and enquiring mind and was interested ‘in all branches of natural history’. Darwin could envisage the bigger picture.

Darwin’s combined compass/clinometer now on display at Down House. The maker is not known but Darwin was given considerable assistance by his Cambridge tutors, family, and by FitzRoy, to equip himself for the Beagle expedition.

Darwin’s geological hammer can also now be seen at Down House. He had been hammering rocks in Wales with Adam Sedgwick, the Cambridge Professor of Geology, when he heard of the offer to join the Beagle expedition.

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 pupil of Lavater [Johann Kaspar Lavater, a Swiss theologian who practised phrenology], 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 it was afterwards well satisfied that my nose had spoken falsely.

FitzRoy may have had doubts about taking onboard a complete stranger recommended by the Cambridge men and possibly invented a ‘Mr Chester’ as a get-out clause, who he claimed was a potential candidate for the post. But after meeting Darwin and clearly getting along well with him, ‘Mr Chester’ was no longer available for the position.

On the expedition Darwin became known to everyone as the ‘philosopher’, or ‘philos’ for short. This was an appropriate solution to a curious situation. Darwin held no rank, but he had the privilege of being able to address the captain by his surname, and it would have seemed odd for the officers and crew to call him Sir, or Mr Darwin. He was a young independent traveller with freedom to come and go, within reason, as he pleased. His father’s annual payments to the Admiralty guaranteed this privileged position and also ensured that the specimens collected were assigned as his personal property.

Darwin had an abundance of energy and applied himself in earnest to the extensive preparations before departure. His sisters proved adept at assembling appropriate clothes. In addition to measuring and surveying instruments, he acquired microscopes, including a portable dissecting one by Robert Bancks, who was instrument maker to George IV. Darwin had taken advice before buying from Robert Brown (1773–1858), the pioneering Scottish botanist and microscopist who in 1801 had sailed as the naturalist on Matthew Flinders’ (1774–1814) survey voyage to northern and southern Australia in the Investigator. Bancks’ instruments had served him well. Later in Devonport Darwin heeded to FitzRoy’s recommendation and purchased a set of aneroid barometers.

Simple microscope by Robert Bancks, owned by Darwin and now on display in his study at Down House. Bancks was part of the firm Bancks and Son – Instrument makers and Opticians to His Majesty, based at 119 New Bond Street, London (1820–27).

Darwin also bought traps, nets and hooked fishing lines, as well as books and items to store his specimens, which included preserving papers. He received assistance from William Yarrell (1784–1856), the crack shot, accomplished angler, acclaimed naturalist, and astute bargainer, who recommended a rifle and a brace of pistols for what he considered to be the knock-down price of £50, which Darwin thought might come in useful to fight those ‘d— Cannibals’. The cost of equipping him for the voyage was about £600. Henslow also provided introductions to various specialists, including veterans of naval voyages such as the Scottish surgeon and polar explorer Sir John Richardson (1787–1865). He recommended that Darwin take a crash course on the rudiments of navigation to understand latitude and longitude.

As a supernumerary on FitzRoy’s ship Darwin’s position was unpaid and he was expected to contribute £50 per annum to the Admiralty towards his upkeep. His assistant, Syms Covington, received £60 per annum plus expenses. The number of diplomatic references in his letters to his father and sisters relating to money issues and banker’s drafts is telling. Writing to Caroline on 9 August 1834, he reassures with the following words:

Give my Father my best love & thanks for all his kindness about money, & tell him I can seriously say that since leaving England I have spent none excepting in the furtherance of Natural History, & as little as I could in that, so that my time should not be thrown away.

By early October 1831 Darwin had said his farewells to family and friends. He received news that the Beagle would be delayed in sailing from Devonport, Plymouth, and so he decided to stay in London for a few weeks. On 24 October he finally arrived in Devonport, although inclement weather would prevent the ship from leaving for more than two months. On the 25th, Darwin noted in his Diary:

Went on board the Beagle, found her moored to the Active [a former naval ship] hulk & in a state of bustle and confusion.– The men were chiefly employed in painting the fore part & fitting up the Cabins.– The last time I saw her [12 October]…she was in the Dock yard & without her masts or bulkheads & looked more like a wreck than a vessel commissioned to go round the world.

Darwin’s instruments and books were taken on board and after two days’ hard work with his cabin companion John Lort Stokes and brother Erasmus they managed to arrange everything into a ‘very neat order’. There was no room to swing the proverbial cat in this living, sleeping and storage space measuring about 10 by 11 feet that Darwin would have been unable to stand upright in.

Darwin’s extensive correspondence includes only a brief mention of his living quarters. In a letter to Henslow he observed that, ‘The corner of the cabin, which is my private property, is most woefully small. – I have just room to turn round & that is all’. The poop cabin contained not only the drafting table but it was also the repository for the ship’s privately owned but collectively enjoyed library that included more than one hundred volumes, such as bibles, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, novels, pamphlets, poetry and reference works. Several reference books helped Darwin to identify fossils and other specimens, although the authors were not always right in their descriptions and details. In addition, FitzRoy had his own library that his companion could consult.

Evidence of FitzRoy’s early relationship with Darwin is found in this entry in Darwin’s Diary for 22 November, while still at Devonport: ‘Went on board & returned in a panic on the old subject want of room, returned to the vessel with Cap FitzRoy, who is such an effectual & goodnatured contriver that the very drawers enlarge on his appearance & all difficulties smooth away’.

Around a fortnight before departure Darwin candidly expressed his concerns about the responsibilities and challenges of his appointment:

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.

FitzRoy’s disciplined naval training and shipboard routine no doubt rubbed off on his messmate. Admiralty Regulations of this period insisted that a ship’s captain kept a daily log with detailed notes and accounts of important incidents and events. Darwin may well have had his own ideas about keeping written records, but certainly FitzRoy’s example reinforced Darwin’s notions about maintaining regular records of his observations. Darwin’s excessive workload of collecting, describing, preserving and packing specimens was formally acknowledged by FitzRoy and he obtained official approval for Darwin’s request for an assistant. Syms Covington was formally appointed to that position and became an indispensable aid to Darwin.

On 6 January 1832 the Beagle arrived at the Canary Islands and anchored off the port of Santa Cruz on Tenerife. This was Darwin’s dream destination but neither he nor any of the seamen went ashore. Reports of cholera in England worried the port officials and the British Vice-Consul conveyed the news that they could only land if they were first subjected to twelve days of quarantine afloat. Everyone was disappointed but the decision was made to sail on to the Cape Verde Islands arriving at St Jago (Santiago) on 16 January 1832.

Darwin’s letter to his father, written on 10 February 1832 two days sail from St Jago, is revealing:

The voyage from Tenerife to St Jago was very pleasant & our three weeks at it have been quite delightful. St Jago although generally reckoned very uninteresting was the most exciting. Of course the little Vegetation that there was, was purely tropical. And my eyes have already feasted on the exquisite form & colours of Cocoa nuts, Bananas & the beautiful orange trees. Hot houses give no idea of these forms, especially orange trees, which in their appearance are as widely different & superior to the English ones as their fresh fruit is to the imported. Natural History goes on excellently & I am incessantly occupied by new & most interesting animals. There is only one sorrowful drawback, the enormous period of time before I shall be back in England. I am often quite frightened when I look forward. As yet everything has answered brilliantly, I like everybody about the ship, & many of them very much. The Captain is as kind as he can be. Wickham is a glorious fine fellow and what may appear quite paradoxical to you is that I literally find a ship (when I am not sick) nearly as comfortable as a house. It is an excellent place for working & reading, & already I look forward to going to sea, as a place of rest, in short my home.

I am thoroughly convinced that such a good opportunity of seeing the world might not [come] again for a century. I think, if I can be so soon judge, I shall be able to do some original work in the Natural History – I find there is little known about many of the tropical animals.

In mid-February Darwin was impressed with the sight of the St Paul’s Rocks close to the line of the equator but the crossing-the-line ceremony, the ‘watery ordeal’, was not to his liking. On the 17th: ‘We have crossed the Equator, & I have undergone the disagreeable operation of being shaved’. He went on:

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 & 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.

‘Corcovado Mountain, Rio de Janeiro’, engraving after Augustus Earle from the Narrative (1839). Earle was fascinated by the mountain and he accompanied Darwin on a climb to the summit. Atop the mountain today is a statue of Christ the Redeemer that has become an icon of Rio and Brazil.

Writing to his father in a letter started on 8 February 1832 and completed later in that month Darwin notes:

The time has flown away most delightfully, indeed nothing can be pleasanter; exceedingly busy, & that business both a duty & a great delight. I do not believe I have spent one half hour idly since leaving Tenerife: St. Jago has afforded me an exceedingly rich harvest in several kinds of Nat. History…. Whenever I enjoy anything I always either look forward to writing it down, either in my log book (which increases in bulk) or in a letter.

In the same letter Darwin makes some insightful comments about the equipment aboard the Beagle, his developing collections, and the relationship of the limited space within the ship to his working methods:

I find my collections are increasing wonderfully, & from Rio I think I shall be obliged to send a Cargo home. All the endless delays which we experienced at Plymouth have been most fortunate, as I verily believe no person ever went out better provided for collecting & observing in the different branches of Natural History. In a multitude of counsellors I certainly found good. I find to my great surprise that a ship is singularly comfortable for all sorts of work. Everything is close at hand, & being cramped makes one so methodical, in the end I have been a gainer.

Darwin was a prolific letter writer. This lengthy letter also included the warning to his father that he must ‘excuse these queer letters & recollect they are generally written in the evening after my days work. I take more pains over my Log Book, so that eventually you will have a good account of all the places I visit’. His family had knowledge of Beagle’s voyage itinerary. Darwin’s letters home forewarned his family of the ship’s progress and destinations, and the British broadsheet newspapers also featured shipping news. Writing to Darwin his family sent the letters ahead to various British Admiralty stations and remarkably most of the letters arrived intact courtesy of naval ships.

On 28 February Beagle was close to the coast of Brazil on the northern side of the ‘antient town of Bahia or San Salvador’. Darwin compared the unreality of the scenery to the dramatic and sensational biblical paintings of the artist John ‘Mad’ Martin (1789–1854). He was of the opinion that you had to see the view to believe it. To an extent he found his favourite travel writer’s observations reassuring: ‘from what I have seen Humboldt’s glorious descriptions are & will for ever be unparalleled: but even with his dark blue skies & the rare union of poetry with science which he so strongly displays when writing on tropical scenery, with all this falls far short of the truth.’

Darwin was very impressed with Brazil and when they arrived at Rio de Janeiro he made detailed descriptions and stayed ashore for some time with FitzRoy’s artist, Augustus Earle, who acted as a guide as he had been resident there on earlier, independent explorations. The scenery of Brazil was exceptional but Darwin found dealing with the people a frustrating experience. On 6 April 1832 he had wasted an inordinate amount of time trying to gain the passports for his expedition into the country’s interior. He wrote:

It is never very pleasant to submit to the insolence of men in office; but to the Brazilians, who are as contemptible in their minds as their persons are miserable, it is nearly intolerable. 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.

Darwin made the most of every opportunity to explore and was not reticent about participating in land or sea exploration and survey parties even if it put his life in peril.

…stay more than a month at Rio. I have some thoughts, if I can find tolerably cheap lodgings, of living in a beautiful village about 4 miles from the town. It would be excellent for my collection & for knowing the Tropics, moreover I shall escape the cauking [caulking] & painting & various bedevilments which Wickham is planning. The part of my life as sailor (& I am becoming one i.e. knowing the ropes & how to put the ship about &c) is unexpectedly pleasant.

He had a few more surprises in store for Caroline, telling her on 8 April 1832: ‘You will be terrified at the thought of my combating with alligators & Jaguars in the wilds of the Brazils’.

These days have been gliding away; there have been torrents of rain, & the fields are quite soaked with water; if I had wished to walk it would have been very disagreeable, but as it is, I find one hour’s collecting keeps me in full employment for the rest of the day. The naturalist in England, in his walks, enjoys a great advantage over others in frequently meeting with 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.

From an effusive letter to Caroline from Botofogo Bay on 25 April 1832, Darwin confides that the captain

…has communicated to me an important piece of news: the Beagle on the 7th May sails back to Bahia. The reason is a most unexpected difference is found in the Longitudes. It is a thing of great importance & the Captain has written to the Admiralty accordingly. Most likely I shall live quietly here, it will cost a little but I am quite delighted at the thought of enjoying a little more of the Tropics. I am sorry the first part of this letter has already been sent to the Tyne [HMS Tyne]; I must tell you for your instruction that the Captain says, Miss Austens [Jane Austen] novels are on everybody[’s] table…

By 9 May 1832 Darwin noted in his Diary that there were now four Beagle men living on shore while Beagle continued her survey work. The Fuegians had not yet been settled in Tierra del Fuego, and Darwin revealed a keen sense of humour at the expense of one of the them: ‘Earl, who is unwell & suffers agonies from the Rheumatism. The serjeant of Marines, who is recovering from a long illness, & Miss Fuegia Basket, who daily increases in every direction except in height’.

I thought of the many most happy hours I have spent with you in Cambridge. I am now living at Botofogo, a village about a league from the city, & shall be able to remain a month longer. The Beagle has gone back to Bahia…. Our Chronometers at least 16 of them, are going superbly; none on record ever have gone at all like them.

I have determined not to send a box till we arrive at Monte Video – it is too great a loss of time both for Carpenters & myself to pack up whilst in harbor. I am afraid when I do send it, you will be disappointed, not having skins of birds & but very few plants, & geological specimens small: the rest of the things in bulk make very little show.

Darwin relayed to Catty (his youngest sister) that on 6 July they would touch at Cape Frio, where HMS Thetis, with a substantial amount of money and treasure, had foundered in 1830. He noted:

They have fished up 900,000 dollars. If we are lucky enough (& it is very probably) to have a gale off St. Catherine’s we shall run in there. I expect to suffer terribly from sea-sickness – as we are certain to have bad weather. After lying a short time at MV [Montevideo]: we cruize to the South – but not I believe Rio Negro. The geography of this country is as little known as the interior of Africa. I long to put my foot, where man had never trod before – and am most impatient to leave civilized ports.

In fact they would call at Rio Negro. Darwin was involved in quelling a rebellion at Montevideo. In 1821 the Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro I had annexed the eastern part of Uruguay. Juan Antonio Lavalleja led the insurgents and fought back. Finally in 1828 Uruguay’s independence was recognized. The fighting that Darwin witnessed was between rival political parties.

We all thought we should at last be able to spend a quiet week, but alas the very morning after anchoring a serious mutiny in some black troops endangered the safety of the town. We immediately arrived & manned all our boats, & at the request of the inhabitants occupied the principal fort. It was something new to me to walk with Pistols & Cutlass through the streets of a town. It has all ended in smoke. But the consequence very disagreeable to us, since from the troubled state of the country we cannot walk in the country.

‘Botofogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro’, watercolour by Conrad Martens. Painted before Martens formally joined the Beagle expedition as Augustus Earle’s replacement. Darwin shared a cottage with Earle at Botofogo Bay in 1832.

‘Monte Video – Custom House’, engraving after Augustus Earle from the Narrative (1839).

Darwin’s Diary recorded that, ‘The revolutions in these countries are quite laughable; some few years ago in Buenos Ayres, they had 14 revolutions in 12 months; things go as quietly as possible; both sides dislike the sight of blood; & so that the one which appears the strongest gains the day.’

By the end of July and well into August Darwin did have the opportunity to explore, and he records his experiences of hunting with John Clements Wickham, Bartholomew James Sulivan, and a new midshipman by the name of Robert Hamond. FitzRoy was delighted with his selection of Darwin as his naturalist-companion. He wrote to Beaufort from Montevideo on 15 August 1832:

All goes well – extremely well – on board. I can say, what seldom may be said, with truth, that I do not wish to change a single Officer or Man, and that I have not more sincere friends in the world than my own Officers. From the Druid [HMS Druid] I have obtained an old friend and shipmate named Hamond (a passed Midshipman) – Captain Hamilton has lent him; and in some manner I must contrive to keep him. Mr Darwin is a very superior young man, and the very best (as far as I can judge) that could have been selected for the task. He has a mixture of necessary qualities which makes him feel at home, and happy, and makes every one his friend.

By 18 October the Beagle prepared to visit Tierra del Fuego to continue the survey work and re-settle the Fuegians. Writing to Caroline while at sea, Darwin relayed that,

…this second cruize will be a very long one; during it we settle the Fuegians & probably survey the Falkland Islands; After this is over (it is an aweful long time to talk about) we return to M Video, pick up our officers & then round the Horn & once more enter the glorious, delicious intertropical seas.

Darwin (from Montevideo on 24 November 1832) told Henslow of his expectations: ‘I expect to find the wild mountainous country of Tierra del very interesting; & after the coast of Patagonia I shall thoroughly enjoy it’. The coast of Tierra del Fuego was reached on 16 December close to the southern part of Cape St Sebastian. The smoke from native fires was evidence of human habitation. On the 18th Darwin described in his Diary his first encounter with Fuegians in the Bay of Good Success:

When we landed, the party looked rather alarmed, but continued talking & making gestures with great rapidity. It was without exception the most curious & interesting spectacle I ever beheld. I would not have believed how entire the difference between savage & civilized man is. It is greater than between a wild & domesticated animal, in as much as in man there is greater power of improvement. The chief spokesman was old & appeared to be head of the family; the three others were young powerful men & about 6 feet high. From their dress &c &c they resembled the representations of Devils on the Stage, for instance in [Weber’s opera] Der Freischutz.

The skin is a dirty copper colour. Reaching from ear to ear & including the upper lip, there was a broad red coloured band of paint; & parallel & above this, there was a white one; so that the eyebrows & eyelids were even thus coloured. The only garment was a large guanaco skin, with the hair outside. This was merely thrown over their shoulders, one arm & leg being bare; for any exercise they must be absolutely naked.

He thought, ‘their very attitudes very abject, & the expression distrustful, surprised & startled’. Darwin recalled what Captain Cook had thought of their language:

Their language does not deserve to be called articulate: Capt Cook says it is like a man clearing his throat; to which may be added another very hoarse man trying to shout & a third encouraging a horse with that peculiar noise which is made in one side of the mouth.

Every opportunity was made to undertake the extensive survey work in Beagle and the small boats. FitzRoy spent around two months engaged in this work in which Darwin assisted. On 26 February 1833 the Beagle sailed for the Falkland Islands, which were under possession of the British Crown, arriving on the morning of 1 March at Port Louis, the most eastern point of the islands.

‘Button Island, near Woollya’, engraving after Conrad Martens from the Narrative (1839). Button Island was named after Jemmy Button.

…remarkably easy to access to persons on foot; but half-concealed rivulets and numerous bogs, oblige a mounted traveller to be very cautious. There are no trees any where, but a small bush is plentiful in many vallies. Scarcely any views can be more dismal than that from the heights; moorland and black bog extend as far as eye can discern, intersected by innumerable streams, and pools of yellowish brown water.

Darwin was beginning to ask some searching questions. He commented on the wild pigs and foxes of the Falklands. He was intrigued by the differences between the appearances of the foxes on the islands and those on the mainland of South America, especially in Patagonia. He believed there were radical differences. After visiting the islands he noted:

The only quadruped native to the island is a large wolf-like fox which is common to both East and West Falkland. I have no doubt it is a peculiar species, and confined to this archipelago; because many sealers, gauchos and Indians who have visited these islands, all maintain that no such animal is found in any part of South America…

Early in March 1833 the sealing schooner Unicorn arrived in the Falkland Islands and FitzRoy capitalized on the owner’s plight. The sealing season had been so unsuccessful that William Harris had run up huge debts. FitzRoy agreed to acquire the vessel to assist his survey work and thereby provide financial assistance to Harris. The vessel was renamed Adventure and sailed for the mainland of South America with Wickham in command on 4 April, followed two days later by the Beagle. They were making their way towards Maldonado in Uruguay where, according to FitzRoy, ‘Mr Darwin lived on shore, sometimes at the village of Maldonado, sometimes making excursions into the country to a considerable distance’. FitzRoy occupied himself by working up his charts.

Writing to Catherine from Maldonado on 22 May 1833, Darwin made many requests for books, provisions and equipment in his postscript:

When you read this I am afraid you will think that I am like the Midshipman in Persuasion [Jane Austen], who never wrote home, excepting when he wanted to beg; it is chiefly for more books… Cary [the brothers John and William Cary were eminent scientific instrument makers with separate businesses in London] has 3s.6d tape measure of about 11⁄2 feet. I have lost mine. I have at present a double convex lens [Darwin is referring to one of his microscopes], fitted to the object-glass, & about one inch in diameter; now I want one on a larger scale & with longer focal distance for illuminating opake [opaque] objects: it must be fixed on a stand & with plenty of motions…& lastly 4 pairs of very strong walking shoes from Howell.

From Rio de la Plata on 18 July 1833 Darwin updated Henslow on his collection of specimens, and it was apparent he was looking forward to leaving the Atlantic coast of South America for the warmer waters of the Pacific:

After the Beagle returns…we take in 12 months provisions & in the beginning of October proceed to Tierra del F., then pass the Straights of Magellan & enter the glorious Pacific: The Beagle after proceeding to Conception or Valparaiso, will once more go Southward, (I however will not leave the warm weather) & upon her return we proceed up the coast, ultimately to cross the Pacific. I am in great doubt whether to remain at Valparaiso or Conception: at the latter beds of Coal & shells, but at the former I could cross & recross the grand chain of the Andes. I am ready to bound for joy at the thoughts of leaving this stupid, unpicturesque side of America.

Darwin was also concerned about the fate of his specimens shipped home: ‘I am anxious to know, what has become of a large collection (I fancy ill assorted) of Geological specimens made in former voyage from Tierra del Fuego’.

On 24 July the Beagle departed from the Rio de la Plata to complete her survey of the coast of Patagonia south of Bahia Blanca. Darwin landed on the north bank of the Rio Negro to explore, and on 11 August set off on horseback to visit the camp on the River Colorado of the Argentinian army who were fighting the Araucanian Indians, as well as other tribes and groups. He regaled Caroline with his expedition news claiming that he had ‘become quite a Gaucho, drink my Mattee, & smoke my cigar, & then lie down & sleep as comfortably with the Heavens for a canopy as in a feather bed’.

‘Patagonian’, engraving after Phillip Parker King from the Narrative (1839). Darwin described the Patagonians as: ‘Their height appears greater than it really is, from their large guanaco mantles, their long flowing hair, and general figure: on average their height is about six feet, with some men taller and only a few shorter; and the women are also tall; altogether they are certainly the tallest race which we anywhere saw’.

Darwin was granted a meeting with General Juan Manuel de Rosas (1793–1877), the commander of the Argentinian forces who had accumulated vast wealth as a cattle farmer and beef exporter at the expense of the local people. Darwin was impressed by him but predicted the downfall of this South American dictator. In the early 1850s Rosas fled to Britain, where he spent the rest of his life in exile.

‘Santa Cruz River, and Distant View of the Andes’, engraving after Conrad Martens from the Narrative (1839).

Shooting guanacos on the banks of the Rio Santa Cruz, watercolour by Conrad Martens. This is a surprisingly rare portrayal of hunting by FitzRoy’s second shipboard artist. Perhaps it was an activity that was regarded as commonplace and not worthy of recording. Martens himself was an excellent shot.

FitzRoy often wrote to Darwin if he was resident in one place for a significant period of time and his letter to Darwin of 4 October 1833 expressed concern at Darwin’s escapades: ‘How many times did you flee from the Indians? How many precipices did you fall over? How many bogs did you fall into? How often were you carried away by the floods?’ In the same letter he informed Darwin of his appointment of Conrad Martens, his second shipboard artist.

Darwin arrived in Montevideo in the first week of November 1833 to rejoin the Beagle but was surprised to find that the ship would not actually sail until the beginning of December. On 12 November Darwin was informing Henslow of yet more specimens to be shipped back. Among boxes of bones and stones, ‘There are two boxes & a cask. One of the former is lined with a tin-plate & contains nearly 200 skins of birds & animals – amongst others a fine collection of the mice of S. America’.

Beagle finally left Montevideo on 6 December at 4 o’clock in the morning and after a protracted passage, mainly because the winds were ‘light & foul’, she arrived at Port Desire on the 23rd of that month. On Christmas Day FitzRoy organized sports and games and handed out prizes. Darwin participated in several land excursions. In the New Year, to speed up the official work, the Beagle and the Adventure separated. The former continued surveying in Tierra del Fuego. She entered the Strait of Magellan, and after a short stopover at Gregory Bay, arrived at Port Famine at the beginning of February 1834. The Adventure worked in the Falkland Islands.

At Woolaston Island Darwin went ashore and ‘walked or rather crawled to the tops of some of the hills; the rock is not slate, & in consequence there are but few trees; the hills are very much broken & of fantastic shapes’. He was uncomplementary about the appearance of six Fuegians: ‘I never saw more miserable creatures; stunted in their growth, their hideous faces bedaubed with white paint & quite naked’. Darwin continued to ask searching questions, recording in his Diary on 24 February 1834: ‘Whence have these people come? Have they remained in the same state since the creation of the world?’ He continued: ‘There can be no reason for supposing the race of Fuegians are decreasing, we may therefore be sure that he enjoys a sufficient share of happiness (whatever its kind may be) to render life worth having. Nature by making habit omnipotent, has fitted the Fuegian to the climate & production of his country’.

Before the Beagle sailed for warmer waters there was a second visit to the Falkland Islands. FitzRoy discovered that Argentinian prisoners had overpowered their guards and killed British residents. He was shocked to discover that Matthew Brisbane, who had been left in charge of the islands, had been brutally murdered. FitzRoy ensured that Brisbane was given a proper burial and succeeded in restoring order and British control.

Darwin was able to undertake some beneficial work: rocks were hammered, roots were pulled and he made extensive notes on the geological structure of the islands. He was of the opinion that the ‘Zoology of the sea [was] generally the same here as in Tierra del Fuego’.

‘Beagle laid ashore, River Santa Cruz’, engraving after Conrad Martens from the Narrative (1839). FitzRoy wrote in the Narrative: ‘On the 13th [April] 1834 we anchored in the Santa Cruz, and immediately prepared to lay our vessel ashore for a tide, to ascertain how much injury had been caused by the rock at Port Desire, and to examine the copper previous to her employment in the Pacific Ocean, where worms soon eat their way through unprotected planks’.

FitzRoy steered a course back to the Argentine coast and on 13 April Beagle dropped anchor at the mouth of the Rio Santa Cruz. FitzRoy had an ambitious plan that was unfulfilled from Beagle’s first expedition. He wanted to survey as far as possible up the Santa Cruz and he had small boats to assist him. The Beagle needed attention after she had hit a rock at Port Desire and FitzRoy thought the hull might be damaged. The beaching of Beagle to inspect her and make repairs resulted in an engraving after Conrad Martens’ original drawing that featured in the Narrative. Martens also painted a wide-angle watercolour view showing three of the ship’s boats on the Rio Santa Cruz that reveals the scale and challenge of the surveying enterprise. This picture was purchased from the artist later in the voyage by Darwin in Sydney. Darwin and FitzRoy both provided detailed descriptions of the prevalent condors and guanacos of which many were shot. On 4 May the boats turned back from their arduous exploration of the river, which often involved the men actually hauling the boats by land lines. FitzRoy was concerned that supplies were running short. They had gone further than any other European but the men were frustrated at their progress.

View of Mount Sarmiento, Tierra del Fuego, watercolour by Conrad Martens. Martens painted several views of this striking mountain. He borrowed a telescope from Darwin to help him create a picture for his sketchbook that he described as: ‘Mount Sarmiento as seen from Port Famine by telescope distant 49 miles’, dated 2 February 1834. It is now in the Cambridge University Library.

When I wrote from the Falklands we were on the point of sailing for the S. Cruz on the coast of Patagonia. We there looked at Beagle’s bottom; her false keel was found knocked off, but otherwise not damaged. When this was done, the Captain & 25 hands in three boats proceeded to follow up the course of the river S. Cruz. The expedition lasted three weeks; from want of provisions we failed reaching as far as was expected, but we were within 20 miles of [the] great snowy range of Cordilleras: a view which has never been seen by European eyes.

The river is a fine large body of water; it traverses wild desolate plains inhabited by scarcely anything but the Guanaco. We saw in one place smoke & tracks of the horses of a party of Indians: I am sorry we did not see them, they would have been out & out wild Gentlemen.

FitzRoy was vexed at the enforced sale of his auxiliary surveying vessel, Adventure, and realized that he could no longer make a complete survey of the Chilean and Peruvian coastlines. By the time Darwin had written his letter the Beagle had called in a Gregory Bay, spent a week at Port Famine and then sailed through and out of the Strait of Magellan, enjoying a spectacular view of ‘the grand glacier’ Mount Sarmiento en route. On 27 June 1834 she anchored at San Carlos at the northern end of the island of Chiloe. Darwin commented on the local people: ‘They all appear to have a great mixture of Indian blood & widely differ from every other set of Spaniards in not being Gauchos’.

‘Woman of Chiloe, weaving’, graphite sketch by Conrad Martens from one of his shipboard sketchbooks.

Beagle arrived at Valparaiso, Chile, on 23 July where she would be based for several months. Darwin made an extensive ride inland to Santiago. After Tierra del Fuego and Chiloe, Darwin found the climate much more to his liking: ‘the sky so clear & blue, the air so dry & the sun so bright, that all nature seemed sparkling with life’. Darwin stayed in Santiago for a week where he was impressed by ‘very pretty Signoritas’ and observed that it was built ‘on a plain, the basin of a former inland sea; the perfect levelness of this plain is contrasted in a strange & picturesque manner with great snow topped mountains which surround it’.

From Santiago Darwin travelled south ‘about 40 leagues’ to S. Fernando, from where he told Caroline: ‘Every one in the city talked so much about the robbers & murderers’. He also told her that with the Adventure sold, ‘we shall all be very badly off for room’.

When Darwin recovered from a protracted illness at Valparaiso he realized the extent of his captain’s depression. Everyone now believed that the larger part of the expedition was over. FitzRoy was overworked and Darwin revealed in a letter that the ‘difficulty of living on good terms with a Captain of a Man-of-War is much increased by its being almost mutinous to answer him as one would answer anyone else; and by the awe in which he is held – or was held in my time, by all on board’.

‘San Carlos de Chiloe’, engraving after Conrad Martens from the Narrative (1839). The preparatory sketches for these illustrations can be seen in the Cambridge University Library, which holds the artist’s sketchbooks numbered I and III. Martens used the sketches as visual ‘spring boards’ to later work up into watercolours.

In an epistle to Catty written on 8 November 1834, Darwin conveyed his enthusiasm and envisioned the homeward leg:

Hurra Hurra it is fixed the Beagle shall not go one mile South of C. Tres Montes & from that point to Valparaiso will be finished in about five months. We shall examine the Chonos archipelago, entirely unknown & the curious inland sea behind Chiloe. For me it is glorious. C. T. Montes is the most southern point where there is much geological interest, as there the modern beds end…

The Beagle arrived in the harbour of San Carlos on Chiloe on 20 November where Darwin admired the volcanoes and observed the active motions and smoke of Osorno, one of the active volcanoes of the southern Chilean Andes, measuring 8,701 feet in height. In January 1835, from a distance, Darwin observed it erupting. Poor weather hindered Beagle’s survey work but she did establish that the island of Chiloe had been previously overestimated in terms of length by around 30 miles. Darwin collected frogs, flatworms and barnacles.

On 8 January 1835 the Beagle arrived at the predominantly Spanish-populated port and town of Valdivia. The ship was on her way north up the coast to Concepcion when the Great Earthquake occurred. The crew witnessed the tremendous swell of the sea passing along the western side of the Bay of Concepcion. Darwin was profoundly affected by the subsequent devastation and ruins that he saw, and Wickham sketched the remains of the cathedral. The Beagle survived but she lost all but one of her large anchors and in early March she reached to Valparaiso. Darwin embarked on an extensive overland expedition on horseback from Santiago to Mendoza. But he undertook his longest ride on 27 April 1835 through the Andes travelling more than 220 miles to Coquimbo (in search of new and remarkable natural history specimens and to observe the landscape). FitzRoy, travelling independently, met up with Darwin and painted a panoramic view of the town. Darwin summed up his frustrations and homesickness to Caroline: ‘It is very hard & wearisome labour riding so much through such countries as Chili, & I was quite glad when my trip came to a close. Excluding the interest arising from Geology, such travelling would be down right Martyrdom’.

‘Remains of the Cathedral at Concepcion’, engraving after John Clements Wickham from the Narrative (1839). On 4 March 1835 the Beagle entered the harbour of Concepcion and witnessed at first hand that there was barely a house left standing. Luckily nearly all the inhabitants escaped serious injury.

Darwin was more excited about his time in Peru. In mid-July the Beagle arrived at Iquique and later called into Callao, the port serving Lima. Syms Covington painted the striking ladies of Lima with their close-fitting outfits and covered faces that revealed only one large dark eye. The ladies and one of the fruits of the city made a lasting impression on Darwin:

There are two things in Lima which all travellers have discussed; the ladies ‘tapadas’, or concealed in the saya y Manta, & a fruit called Chilimoya. To my mind the former is as beautiful as the latter is delicious. The close elastic gown fit’s the figure closely & obliges the ladies to walk with small steps which they do very elegantly & display very white stockings & very pretty feet. They wear a black silk veil, which is fixed round the waist behind, is brought over the head, & held by the hands before the face, allowing one eye to remain uncovered. But then that one eye is so black & brilliant & has such powers of motion & expression that its effect is powerful.

Beagle’s next port of call was the Galapagos Islands. She arrived there in mid-September 1835, and she was here for just five weeks. The ground-breaking discoveries stemming from this stopover would only emerge after the expedition was completed. Darwin had the opportunity to explore several areas of the island of Chatham, and also parts of the islands of Charles, Albemarle and James. ‘Disgusting clumsy lizards’ frequented the black lava rocks. Darwin established that they were vegetarian and could hold their breath under water for many minutes. He discovered new species of fish, observed and collected mocking birds and finches. The birds would be later identified and classified by the English ornithologist John Gould. The vital information he provided would lead Darwin to assert that the birds had evolved into different species on separate islands with individual shaped beaks for acquiring and processing food.

Land lizards and tortoises also caught Darwin’s attention. Nicholas Lawson, an Englishman living on Charles Island and acting as governor, alleged that he could tell which island a tortoise came from by the shape of its shell; information that would later help Darwin construct his radical evolutionary theory relating to natural selection. The male tortoise was much larger than the female; ‘some require 8 or 10 men to lift them’. They drank large quantities of water and wallowed in mud. Tortoises were killed for the water within them and for their meat. Many were taken onboard the Beagle for food to sustain the men on the rest of their journey home.

Beagle arrived at Tahiti in early November after a passage of more than 3,000 miles. Darwin did not much care for this ‘fallen paradise’. He lamented the nakedness of the populace and wished they would adopt a more European style of dress. Darwin was not only homesick, but by this stage of the expedition he had become noticeably jaded and his descriptions became less expansive and detailed. Even his chewing of the plant called ava, which had a powerful and hallucinogenic effect, failed to lift his spirits. The missionaries had forbidden the locals to use it and also encouraged temperance. Darwin visited Henry Nott, a veteran missionary of the island, who had recently completed a translation of the Bible into Tahitian.

Darwin hired a canoe to see something of the reef and admired the corals. It was his opinion that ‘little is yet known, in spite of much that has been written, of the structure & origin of the Coral Islands & reefs’. He observed the diplomacy of the discussions between FitzRoy and Queen Pomare, when FitzRoy managed to extract an agreement of compensation of 36 tons of pearl oyster shells for the murder of British sailors that had occurred in her territorial waters before their arrival. Darwin described the Queen as ‘an awkquard large woman, without any beauty, gracefulness or dignity of manners. She appears to have only one royal attribute, viz a perfect immovability of expression (& that generally rather a sulky one) under all circumstances’.

Beagle spent less than a month at Tahiti. Darwin did not think the island was of much interest. He would think even less of his time at the Bay of Islands in New Zealand, where the ship would stay for less than two weeks. However, he and FitzRoy were impressed with the missionaries there and satisfied themselves that the critical comments made about them by Augustus Earle were unfair. In Earle’s book, A Narrative of A Nine Month’s Residence in New Zealand in 1827: Together With a Journal of a Residence in Tristan D’Acunha, an Island Situated Between South America and the Cape of Good Hope, published in 1832, he claimed the missionaries were cold and inhospitable to him during his time there. However, after checking the facts, Beagle’s captain and naturalist, among many others, came to the conclusion that Earle was being economical with the truth.

Writing to Caroline from the Bay of Islands, on 27 December 1835, Darwin commented:

The Missionaries have done much in improving their [the Maoris’] moral character, & still more in teaching them arts of civilization…we are very indignant with Earle’s book; besides extreme injustice it shows ingratitude. Those very Missionaries who are accused of coldness I know without doubt always treated him with far more civility than his open licentiousness could have given reason to expect…

Darwin thought that the Maoris were superior in energy but that they were in every other way inferior to the Tahitians. In his opinion they were often unfriendly and warlike.

Sydney, Australia, was the last major stopover before the return to Britain. Darwin met up with his former shipmate, Conrad Martens, and he and FitzRoy purchased pictures from Martens that had been developed from his sketches produced during his time on the Beagle voyage. They also met Phillip Parker King, the commander of Beagle’s first expedition, who had settled in Australia, and the ship’s chronometers were verified at the Parramatta observatory.

‘View from the Summit of Mount York, New South Wales’, watercolour by Augustus Earle, c. 1826–7. Earle noted that, ‘the delinquents are employed in forming roads, by cutting through mountains, blasting rocks’. In the background of Earle’s painting the Bathurst Plains are clearly visible. Darwin recorded that on 20 January 1836, ‘In the afternoon we came in view of the downs of Bathurst. These undulating but nearly smooth plains are very remarkable in this country, from being absolutely destitute of trees. They support only a thin brown pasture’.

Darwin explored the Blue Mountains on horseback, travelling to Bathurst. He rated the Aborigines only a few notches higher in terms of civilized beings to the Fuegians. He was impressed by Wentworth Falls, which was also painted by Martens. Darwin did not have much luck in observing kangaroos but he acquired and stuffed a duck-billed platypus. He pondered the bizarre creatures he had seen and recorded in his journal:

A little time before this, I had been lying on a sunny bank & was reflecting on the strange character of the Animals of this country as compared to the rest of the World. An unbeliever in everything beyond his own reason, might exclaim ‘Surely two distinct Creators must have been at work; their object has however been the same & certainly the end in each case is complete’.

Darwin was not sorry to leave Australia. He wrote in his Diary: ‘you are a rising infant & doubtless some day will reign a great princess in the South; but you are too great & ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect; I leave your shores without sorrow or regret’.

To complete the chain of meridian observations required as part of the Admiralty Instructions, Captain Beaufort had given specific details of where the ship should make the necessary stopovers. Beagle proceeded to Hobart in Tasmania where she arrived on 5 February 1836. Darwin was able to examine the geology of Tasmania and was given some specimens by Mr Frankland, the Surveyor General.

On 6 March the Beagle headed back to Australia, arriving at King George Sound close to the south-west corner of the mainland. They stayed for eight days and Darwin thought the scenery resembled that ‘of the high sandstone platform of the Blue Mountains’. He was also very interested in the White Cockatoo Men, who ‘were persuaded to hold a corrobery, or great dancing party’.

On 1 April Beagle arrived at the Cocos Islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. These islands were dominated by coconuts, which was the main export product. Crabs had evolved to climb trees and open coconuts with their claws. Darwin was able to study the coral islands and later developed important ideas relating to their origin and structure. This resulted in his highly regarded publication The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs (1842).

The last ports of call according to Admiralty Instructions were at Mauritius, the Cape of Good Hope and Ascension Island. Darwin’s homesickness was evident in his letter to Caroline on 29 April 1836:

Now one glimpse of my dear home would be better than the united kingdoms of all the glorious Tropics. Whilst we are at sea, & the weather is fine, my time passes smoothly, because I am very busy. My occupation consists in rearranging old geological notes: the rearranging generally consists in totally rewriting them. I am just now beginning to discover the difficulty of expressing one’s ideas on paper. As long as it consists solely of description it is pretty easy; but where reasoning comes into play, to make a proper connection, a clearness & a moderate fluency, is to me, as I have said, a difficulty of which I had no idea.

On the first day of May Darwin climbed the La Pouce mountain of 2,600 feet on the south side of Port Louis, Mauritius. He and John Lort Stokes visited Captain Lloyd, the surveyor general, and stayed at his delightful country residence enjoying a ride on his elephant. Describing the ride, Darwin wrote: ‘The circumstance which surprised me most was its quite noiseless step’. By the end of the month Beagle arrived in Simon’s Bay at Cape Town, where Darwin was assisted by Dr Andrew Smith, a military surgeon and leading authority on the zoology of South Africa. He also met the English mathematician, astronomer, chemist, artist and experimental photographer, Sir John Herschel (1792–1871) who was making a systematic study of the southern skies through his 20-foot telescope.

Sir John Frederick William Herschel, 1st Baronet, albumen print, April 1867, by Julia Margaret Cameron. Sir John was the son of the astronomer Sir William Herschel, a science in which he too would excel. He was also a mathematician, chemist and experimental photographer who encouraged Cameron in her work.

Herschel was a brilliant but shy man, and Darwin was motivated and indebted to this remarkable polymath. In his Autobiography Darwin wrote that in addition to Humboldt’s Personal Narrative, ‘Sir J. Herschel’s Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy stirred up in me a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of Nature Science’.

Both Herschel and Darwin were sensitively photographed by Julia Margaret Cameron (1815–1879), who excelled at capturing celebrities, including actors, artists, musicians, poets and scientists. Darwin declared her pensive profiles of him to be the finest he had ever seen and delighted in her company when he and his family visited her in 1868 at Freshwater on the Isle of Wight during a holiday. In the opening lines of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species he was referring to Herschel when he wrote that his intent is ‘to throw some light on the origin of species – that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers’.

By 8 July the Beagle had arrived at St Helena where Napoleon’s tomb and dilapidated house were visited. The house now sold wine and there was a billiard table to amuse the visitors. Darwin’s assistant made a drawing of what everyone regarded as a very simple memorial for such a remarkable politician and military leader. Darwin was delighted to discover a species of dung-eating beetle.

After five days of sailing Beagle reached Ascension Island. There was little that could be described beautiful about these roughly triangular-shaped volcanic rocks. The islands were sparsely populated with British marines and ‘Negroes liberated from slave ships’. Darwin devoted himself to writing up his notes and was counting the days till the ship would set sail for home. But before the Beagle arrived at Falmouth FitzRoy wanted to double-check the meridian distance that he had measured at Bahia earlier in the expedition and the ship crossed the Atlantic to the Brazilian coast once more. Darwin had lost none of his passion for the tropical scenery:

In the last walk I took, I stopped again and again to gaze on such beauties, & tried to fix for ever in my mind, an impression which at the time I knew must sooner or later fade away. The forms of the Orange tree, the Cocoa nut, the Palms, the Mango, the Banana, will remain clear & separate, but the thousand beauties which unite them all into one perfect scene, must perish; yet they will leave, like a tale heard in childhood, a picture full of indistinct, but beautiful figures.

The Beagle started for home on 6 August and this time there was no crossing-the-line ceremony. A brief stopover at Port Praya in the Cape Verde Islands failed to live up to Darwin’s first impressions on the outward voyage. The last stopover was made at the Azores where Darwin noted with extreme brevity, ‘we stayed for six days’. Finally, on Sunday, 2 October 1836 Beagle dropped anchor at Falmouth, Cornwall, in England.

Darwin made a hasty exit from the ship and travelled by coach as fast as he possibly could to his family home in Shrewsbury. The Beagle would continue on to Greenwich for a final verification of her shipboard instruments before being paid off at Woolwich – her place of her birth.