by Janet Browne
Autobiography, 81
Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has been wandering by himself in a Brazilian forest. Among the multitude of striking objects, the general luxuriance of the vegetation bears away 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 and silence pervades the shady parts of the wood. The noise from the insects is so loud, that it may be heard even in a vessel anchored several hundred yards from the shore; yet within the recesses of the forest a universal silence appears to reign. To a person fond of natural history, such a day as this, brings with it a deeper pleasure than he ever can hope again to experience.
Journal of Researches 1839, 11
Our beards are all sprouting.—my face at presents looks of about the same tint as a half washed chimney sweeper.—With my pistols in my belt & geological hammer in hand, shall I not look like a grand barbarian?
Darwin to S. E. Darwin,
14 July–7 August [1832], DCP 177
Poor dear old England. I hope my wanderings will not unfit me for a quiet life, & that in some future day, I may be fortunate enough to be qualified to become, like you a country Clergyman. And then we will work together at Nat. History, & I will tell such prodigious stories, as no Baron Monchausen ever did before.—But the Captain says if I indulge in such visions, as green fields & nice little wives &c &c, I shall certainly make a bolt.—So that I must remain contented with sandy plains & great Megatheriums:—
Darwin to W. D. Fox,
[12–13] November 1832, DCP 189
There is high enjoyment in the independence of the Gaucho life—to be able at any moment to pull up your horse, and say, “Here we will pass the night.” The deathlike stillness of the plain, the dogs keeping watch, the gipsy-group of Gauchos making their beds round the fire, have left in my mind a strongly-marked picture of this first night, which will not soon be forgotten.
Journal of Researches 1839, 81
One day, as I was amusing myself by galloping and whirling the balls round my head, by accident the free one struck a bush; and its revolving motion being thus destroyed, it immediately fell to the ground, and like magic caught one hind leg of my horse; the other ball was then jerked out of my hand, and the horse fairly secured. Luckily he was an old practised animal, and knew what it meant; otherwise he would probably have kicked till he had thrown himself down. The Gauchos roared with laughter; they cried they had seen every sort of animal caught, but had never before seen a man caught by himself.
Journal of Researches 1839, 51
On arriving at a post-house, we were told by the owner that if we had not a regular passport we must pass on, for there were so many robbers he would trust no one. When he read, however, my passport, which began with “El Naturalista Don Carlos, &c.” his respect and civility were as unbounded, as his suspicions had been before. What a naturalist may be, neither he nor his countrymen, I suspect, had any idea; but probably my title lost nothing of its value from that cause.
Journal of Researches 1839, 139
The sort of interest I take in this voyage, is so different a feeling to any thing I ever knew before, that, as in this present instance I have made arrangements for starting [on an inland expedition], all the time knowing I have no business to do it.
Darwin to C. S. Darwin,
13 November 1833, DCP 230
I find being sick at stomach inclines one also to be home-sick.
Darwin to C. S. Darwin,
13 October 1834, DCP 259
The papers will have told you about the great Earthquake of the 20th of February.—I suppose it certainly is the worst ever experienced in Chili.—It is no use attempting to describe the ruins—it is the most awful spectacle I ever beheld.—The town of Concepcion is now nothing more than piles & lines of bricks, tiles & timbers—it is absolutely true there is not one house left habitable; some little hovels built of sticks & reeds in the outskirts of the town have not been shaken down & these now are hired by the richest people. The force of the shock must have been immense, the ground is traversed by rents, the solid rocks are shivered, solid buttresses 6–10 feet thick are broken into fragments like so much biscuit.
Darwin to C. S. Darwin,
10–13 March 1835, DCP 271
At night I experienced an attack (for it deserves no less a name) of the Benchuca (a species of Reduvius) the great black bug of the Pampas. It is most disgusting to feel soft wingless insects, about an inch long, crawling over one’s body. Before sucking they are quite thin, but afterwards become round and bloated with blood, and in this state they are easily crushed. They are also found in the northern parts of Chile and in Peru. One which I caught at Iquique was very empty. When placed on the table, and though surrounded by people, if a finger was presented, the bold insect would immediately draw its sucker, make a charge, and if allowed, draw blood.
Journal of Researches 1839, 403–4
In returning in the evening to the boat [in Tahiti], we stopped to witness a very pretty scene; numbers of children were playing on the beach, and had lighted bonfires, which illuminated the placid sea and surrounding trees. Others, in circles, were singing Tahitian verses. We seated ourselves on the sand, and joined their party. The songs were impromptu, and I believe related to our arrival: one little girl sang a line, which the rest took up in parts, forming a very pretty chorus. The whole scene made us unequivocally aware that we were seated on the shores of an island in the South Sea.
Journal of Researches 1839, 483
After having walked under a burning sun, I do not know any thing more delicious than the milk of a young cocoa-nut. Pine-apples are here so abundant, that the people eat them in the same wasteful manner as we might turnips. They are of an excellent flavour,—perhaps even better than those cultivated in England; and this I believe is the highest compliment which can be paid to a fruit, or indeed to any thing else.
Journal of Researches 1839, 485
At Pahia [in New Zealand], it was quite pleasing to behold the English flowers in the platforms before the houses; there were roses of several kinds, honeysuckle, jasmine, stocks, and whole hedges of sweetbriar.
Journal of Researches 1839, 497
This voyage is terribly long.—I do so earnestly desire to return, yet I dare hardly look forward to the future, for I do not know what will become of me.—Your situation is above envy; I do not venture even to frame such happy visions.—To a person fit to take the office, the life of a Clergyman is a type of all that is respectable & happy: & if he is a Naturalist & has the “Diamond Beetle”, ave Maria; I do not know what to say.
Darwin to W. D. Fox,
[9–12 August] 1835, DCP 282
There never was a ship so full of home-sick heroes as the Beagle.
Darwin to E. C. Darwin,
14 February 1836, DCP 298
I loathe, I abhor the sea, & all ships which sail on it.
Darwin to S. E. Darwin,
4 August [1836], DCP 306
Towards the close of our voyage I received a letter whilst at Ascension, in which my sisters told me that [Adam] Sedgwick had called on my father and said that I should take a place among the leading scientific men. I could not at the time understand how he could have learnt anything of my proceedings, but I heard (I believe afterwards) that Henslow had read some of the letters which I wrote to him before the Philosophical Soc. of Cambridge and had printed them for private distribution. My collection of fossil bones, which had been sent to Henslow, also excited considerable attention amongst palaeontologists. After reading this letter I clambered over the mountains of Ascension with a bounding step and made the volcanic rocks resound under my geological hammer! All this shows how ambitious I was.
Autobiography, 81–82
The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event in my life and has determined my who
le 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.
Autobiography, 76–77
Geology
The science of Geology is enormously indebted to [Charles] Lyell—more so, as I believe, than to any other man who ever lived. When [I was] starting on the voyage of the Beagle, the sagacious [J. S.] Henslow, who, like all other geologists, believed at that time in successive cataclysms, advised me to get and study the first volume of the “Principles,” [Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology] which had then just been published, but on no account to accept the views therein advocated. How differently would any one now speak of the “Principles”!
Autobiography, 101
The very first place which I examined, namely St. Jago [Santiago] 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.
Autobiography, 77
But Geology carries the day; it is like the pleasure of gambling, speculating on first arriving what the rocks may be.
Darwin to W. D. Fox,
May [1832], DCP168
I found near the Bajada [Baja de Entre Rios, River Parana, Argentina] a large [fossilized] piece, nearly four feet across, of the giant armadillo-like case; also a molar tooth of a mastodon, and fragments of very many bones, the greater number of which were rotten, and as soft as clay. A tooth which I discovered by one point projecting from the side of a bank, interested me much, for I at once perceived that it had belonged to a horse. Feeling much surprise at this, I carefully examined its geological position, and was compelled to come to the conclusion that a horse … lived as a contemporary with the various great monsters that formerly inhabited South America.
Journal of Researches 1839, 149
Having heard of some [fossil] giant’s bones at a neighbouring farm-house on the Sarandis [near the River Parana], a small stream entering the Rio Negro, I rode there accompanied by my host, and purchased for the value of eighteen pence, the head of an animal equalling in size that of the hippopotamus. Mr. Owen in a paper read before the Geological Society, has called this very extraordinary animal, Toxodon, from the curvature of its teeth.
Journal of Researches 1839, 180
It is impossible to reflect without the deepest astonishment, on the changed state of this continent [South America]. Formerly it must have swarmed with great monsters, like the southern parts of Africa, but now we find only the tapir, guanaco, armadillo, and capybara; mere pigmies compared to the antecedent races. The greater number, if not all, of these extinct quadrupeds lived at a very recent period; and many of them were contemporaries of the existing molluscs. Since their loss, no very great physical changes can have taken place in the nature of the country. What then has exterminated so many living creatures?
Journal of Researches 1839, 210
The pleasure from the scenery [of the Andes], in itself beautiful, was heightened by the many reflections which arose from the mere view of the grand range, with its lesser parallel ones, and of the broad valley of Quillota directly intersecting the latter. Who can avoid admiring the wonderful force which has upheaved these mountains, and even more so the countless ages which it must have required, to have broken through, removed, and levelled whole masses of them?
Journal of Researches 1839, 314
On the night of the 19th the volcano of Osorno was in activity. At midnight the [ship’s] sentry observed something like a large star; from which state the bright spot gradually increased in size till about three o’clock, when a very magnificent spectacle was presented. By the aid of a glass, dark objects, in constant succession, were seen, in the midst of a great red glare of light, to be thrown upwards and to fall down again. The light was sufficient to cast on the water a long bright reflection. By the morning the volcano had resumed its tranquility.
Journal of Researches 1839, 356
The day has been memorable in the annals of Valdivia, for the most severe earthquake experienced by the oldest inhabitant. I happened to be on shore, and was lying down in the wood to rest myself. It came on suddenly, and lasted two minutes; but the time appeared much longer. The rocking of the ground was most sensible…. It was something like the movement of a vessel in a little cross ripple, or still more like that felt by a person skating over thin ice, which bends under the weight of his body. A bad earthquake at once destroys the oldest associations: the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, has moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid;—one second of time has conveyed to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never have created.
Journal of Researches 1839, 368, 369
The most remarkable effect (or perhaps speaking more correctly, cause) of this earthquake was the permanent elevation of the land. Captain FitzRoy having twice visited the island of Santa Maria, for the purpose of examining every circumstance with extreme accuracy, has brought a mass of evidence in proof of such elevation.
Journal of Researches 1839, 379
No other work of mine was begun in so deductive a spirit as this; for the whole theory [of coral reefs] was thought out on the west coast of S. America before I had seen a true coral reef. I had therefore only to verify and extend my views by a careful examination of living reefs. But it should be observed that I had during the two previous years been incessantly attending to the effects on the shores of S. America of the intermittent elevation of the land, together with denudation and the deposition of sediment. This necessarily led me to reflect much on the effects of subsidence, and it was easy to replace in imagination the continued deposition of sediment by the upward growth of coral. To do this was to form my theory of the formation of barrier reefs and atolls.
Autobiography, 98–99
I always feel as if my books came half out of Lyell’s brains, & that I never acknowledge this sufficiently—nor do I know how I can without saying so in so many words—for I have always thought that the great merit of the Principles, was that it altered the whole tone of one’s mind & therefore that, when seeing a thing never seen by Lyell, one yet saw it partially through his eyes.
Darwin to Leonard Horner,
29 August [1844], DCP 771
Slavery
Early in the voyage at Bahia in Brazil he [Robert 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 Fitz-Roy showed his usual magnanimity by sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I would continue to live with him.
Autobiography, 73–74
I may mention one very trifling anecdote, which at the time struck me more forcibly than any story of cruelty. I was crossing a ferry with a negro, who was uncommonly stupid. In endeavouring to make him understand, I talked loud, and made signs, in doing which I passed my hand near his face. He, I suppose, thought I was in a passion, and was going to strike him; for instantly, with a frightened look and half-shut eyes, he dropped his hands. I shall never forget my feelings of su
rprise, disgust, and shame, at seeing a great powerful man afraid even to ward off a blow, directed, as he thought, at his face. This man had been trained to a degradation lower than the slavery of the most helpless animal.
Journal of Researches 1839, 28
I have watched how steadily the general feeling, as shown at elections, has been rising against Slavery.—What a proud thing for England, if she is the first Europæan nation which utterly abolishes it.—I was told before leaving England, that after living in Slave countries: all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the Negros character.—it is impossible to see a negro & not feel kindly towards him; such cheerful, open honest expressions & such fine muscular bodies; I never saw any of the diminutive Portuguese with their murderous countenances, without almost wishing for Brazil to follow the example of Hayti; & considering the enormous healthy looking black population, it will be wonderful if at some future day it does not take place.
Darwin to E. C. Darwin,
22 May [–14 July] 1833, DCP 206
It does ones heart good to hear how things are going on in England [Act of Parliament for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire].—Hurrah for the honest Whigs.—I trust they will soon attack that monstrous stain on our boasted liberty, Colonial Slavery.—I have seen enough of Slavery & the dispositions of the negros, to be thoroughly disgusted with the lies & nonsense one hears on the subject in England.
Darwin to J. M. Herbert,
2 June 1833, DCP 209
Natural History Collecting
I mentioned [to Francis Beaufort of the Admiralty], that I believed the Surgeon’s collection would be at the disposal of Government and this he thought would make it much easier for me to retain the disposal of my collection amongst the different bodies in London.