On this passage one of our seamen died of a fever, contracted when absent from the Beagle with several of her officers, on an excursion to the interior part of the extensive harbour of Rio de Janeiro. One of the ship’s boys, who was in the same party, lay dangerously ill, and young [Charles] Musters [Volunteer 1st Class] seemed destined to be a victim to the deadly fever.
I found that the [River] Macacú was notorious among the natives as being often the site of pestilential malaria, fatal even to themselves. How the rest of our party escaped, I know not; for they were eleven or twelve in number, and occupied a day and night in [i.e. on] the river.
As far as I am aware, the risks, in cases such as these, is chiefly encountered by sleeping on shore, exposed to the air on or near the low banks of rivers, in woody or marshy places subject to great solar heat. Those who sleep in boats, or under tents, suffer less than persons sleeping on shore and exposed … .12
On 19 May, said FitzRoy, Musters ‘ended his short career’. (FitzRoy also stated that ‘The boy Jones … died the day after our arrival in Bahia.’13 This was Bahia Blanca, Argentina, which Beagle arrived at on 4 August.)
Darwin gave a similar account of the tragedy. When the Beagle sailed from Rio, he said, three of the party who had explored the River Macacú ‘were ill with fever’, including Seaman Morgan, ‘Boy Jones’ and Charles Musters.
Macacú has been latterly especially notorious for fevers: how mysterious and how terrible is their power. It is remarkable that in almost every case, the fever appears to come on several days after returning into the pure atmosphere.14
Meanwhile, on 8 April, Darwin, in company with an Englishman with whom he had become acquainted, embarked on a 100-mile overland journey on horseback into the interior, where he made measurements of temperature and rainfall, studied fireflies, fungi, and tree ferns, and collected insects in the forest.
In May, Darwin admits to being bewildered by the host of opportunities which the Beagle voyage is affording him, when he writes from Botafogo Bay, Rio de Janeiro to his cousin William Fox, to say
My collections go on admirably in almost every branch. As for insects, I trust I shall send an host of [hitherto] undescribed species to England, [However, at present] I am entirely occupied with land animals, as the beach is only sand … . But Geology carries the day; it is like the pleasure of gambling, speculating on first arriving [as to] what the rocks may be … .15’
In May/June, Darwin wrote to Henslow to say
I have so many things to write about, that my head is as full of oddly assorted ideas, as a [specimen] bottle on the table is with animals.16 [Darwin preserved his organic specimens -such as fungi – in spirit, or failing that, in gin and brine.]
One great source of perplexity to me is an utter ignorance whether I note the right facts & whether they are of sufficient importance to interest others.
Tell Prof. Sedgwick he does not know how much I am indebted to him for the Welch [Welsh] expedition. – it has given me an interest in geology, which I would not give up for any consideration.
And he promises that when Beagle arrives at Montevideo – capital and chief port of Uruguay – he will send Henslow ‘a box’ (i.e. a packing case) of specimens.17
Writing from Rio de Janeiro, on 5 July, Darwin tells his sister, Catherine:
The geography of this country is as little known as [the] interior of Africa. We have been 3 months here: & most undoubtedly I well know the glories of a Brazilian forest. The number of undescribed animals I have taken [collected] is very great … . I attempt class after class of animals, so that before very long I shall have a notion of all.18
In other words, rather than concentrating on a limited number of species, Darwin’s approach was to give blanket coverage to as much of the animal kingdom as was humanly possible.
26 July 1832. We anchored at Montevideo [capital of Uruguay, and] stayed ten weeks at [the town of] Maldonado … situated on the northern bank of the [Rio de la] Plata [River Plate].
It was at Montevideo that Captain FitzRoy met English-born landscape painter Conrad Martens, who was promptly engaged to replace Beagle’s ship’s artist Augustus Earle, who had fallen ill. Darwin and Martens struck up an enduring friendship.
During this time ‘a nearly perfect collection of the animals, birds, and reptiles was procured’. From here Darwin undertook a seventy-mile overland excursion to the River Polanco, pausing to study, en route, the dress and habits of the Gauchos (cowboys of the South American pampas).19
In July/August, Darwin writes to Henslow to say that ‘to day I have been out & returned like Noah’s ark – with all sorts’.20
Darwin’s letter to Henslow of 26 October showed that his prolonged absence from home was beginning to take its toll.
On board the Ship, everything goes on as well as possible, the only drawback is the fearful length of time between this [day] & [the] day of our return. I do not see any limits to it: one year is nearly completed & the second will be so before we even leave the East coast of S. America. And then our voyage may be said really to have commenced. I know not, how I shall be able to endure it. The frequency with which I think of all the happy hours I have spent at Shrewsbury & Cambridge, is rather ominous.21
In October/November, Darwin tells his sister Caroline
It is now nearly four months, since I have received a letter … . I am glad the journal arrived safe … . I feel it is of such consequence to my preserving a just recollection of the different places we visit.
This was a reference to the journal in which Darwin was keeping an account of the voyage.22
To be a member of such a close family, and to be separated from that family by seemingly endless time and space, and to know that the voyage would continue, seemingly indefinitely, must, to Darwin in his more reflective moments, have made him extremely homesick.
17 December 1832. In the afternoon we anchored [at Tierra del Fuego] in the Bay of Good Success.23
21 December 1832. The Beagle … [at] about three o’clock doubled [sailed around] the weather-beaten Cape Horn.24
In January 1833, Darwin received a letter from Henslow at Cambridge to say, ‘So far from being disappointed with the Box [of specimens] – I think you have done wonders … . Most of the plants are very desirable to me’.25 The ship now near doubled back and returned to the Atlantic Ocean.
1 March 1833. … the Beagle anchored in Berkeley Sound in East Falkland Island.26
During this and the following month, Darwin appraised Caroline of the terrible sea conditions encountered off Cape Horn.
We doubled Cape Horn on a beautiful afternoon; it was however the last we were doomed [destined] to have for some time. After trying to make head [way] against the Westerly gales we put into a cove near the Cape. Here we experienced some tremendous weather; the gusts of wind fairly tear up the water & carry clouds of spray. We again put to sea, with no better success, gales succeed gales, with such short intervals, that a ship can do nothing.27
In April Darwin informed Henslow that:
The geology of this part of Tierra del [Fuego] was, as indeed every place is, to me very interesting. [However] In Zoology during the whole [cruise], I have done little; the Southern ocean is nearly as sterile as the continent it washes.28
In May/July, Darwin informed Catherine that although he was tempted to ‘make a bolt across the Atlantic to good old Shropshire’, he had decided against it.
I have worked very hard (at least for me) at Nat History & have collected many animals & observed many geological phenomenon: & I think it would be a pity having gone so far, not to go on & do all in my power in this my favourite pursuit; & which I am sure, will remain so for the rest of my life.29
Darwin had made the correct decision, for had he but known it, a treat such as any student of natural history would have relished beyond measure, was just around the corner.
By 18 July, when he wrote to Henslow from the Rio de la Plata, to which the Beagle had returned, Darwin’s spirits h
ad lifted.
I am ready to bound for joy at the thoughts of leaving this stupid, unpicturesque side of America. When Tierra del F. is over, it will be all Holidays. And then the very thoughts of the fine [corals], the warm glowing weather, the blue sky of the Tropics is enough to make one wild with delight.30
24 July 1833. The Beagle sailed from Maldonando, and on August the 3rd she arrived at the mouth of the Rio Negro [Argentina].
Here, Darwin took note of the ‘salinas’, each of which ‘during the winter … consists of a shallow lake of brine, which in summer is converted into a field of snow-white salt. This, the Patagones [inhabitants of Patagonia] harvest and use for preserving cheese and meat’.31
From the Rio Negro, Darwin embarked on another overland journey, this time one of several hundred miles. Said he
I hired a gaucho to accompany me on my ride to Buenos Aires … [capital city of Argentina]. The distance … is about four hundred miles, and nearly the whole way through uninhabited country.32
For the journey Darwin was placed under the protection of General Juan Manuel de Rosas, Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires and his army, which was charged with exterminating the ‘wandering tribes of horse Indians, which have always occupied the greater part of this country, having of late much harassed the outlying estancias [rural estates, or ranches]’.33 For such a journey, considerable stamina was required, even though it was undertaken on horseback. Sadly, stamina was a quality which Darwin would not always possess.
The village of Bahia Blanca (Argentina), said Darwin, consists of
a few houses and the barracks for the troops [which were] enclosed by a deep ditch and fortified wall.34 The Beagle arrived here on the 24th August, and a week afterwards sailed for the [Rio de la] Plata [or ‘River Plate’, on which Buenos Aires is situated]. With Captain Fitz Roy’s consent I was left behind to travel by land to Buenos Aires.35
Darwin now proceeds to give a description of the geology of the region, and in particular of ‘the number and extraordinary character of the remains of gigantic land animals’.36 They included the megatherium, megalonyx, scelidotherium, mylodon, pachydermatous, and toxodon.37 ‘The remains of these nine great quadrupeds, and many detached [fossilized] bones were found embedded on the beach within the space of about 200 yards square.’38 As for living animals, ostriches and armadillos provided interesting subjects for study.
As regards the constant battles between General Rosas’s troops and the ‘wild Indians’, Darwin declared, ‘Everyone here is fully convinced that this is the most just war, because it is against barbarians.’ Darwin, however, considered both sides to be equally barbaric: ‘Who would believe in this age that such atrocities could be committed in a civilized Christian country?39 The warfare is too bloody to last; the Christians killing everything Indian, and the Indians doing the same to the Christians.’40
20 September 1833. We arrived by the middle of the day at Buenos Aires.41
Here, another marathon journey awaited him, for seven days later he wrote
In the evening I set out on an excursion to St [Santa] Fe, which is situated nearly three hundred English miles from Buenos Aires, on the banks of the [river] Parana.42
By comparing the various animals which inhabited the continents of North and South America, both currently and prehistorically (i.e. from their bony remains), Darwin was able to deduce that the two continents were once
much more closely related in the character of their terrestrial inhabitants than they now are … I know of no other instance where we can almost mark the period and manner of the splitting up of one great region into two well-characterized zoological provinces. [Furthermore] The geologist, who is fully impressed with the vast oscillations of level which have affected the Earth’s crust within late periods, will not fear to speculate on the recent elevation of the Mexican Platform, or, more probably, on the recent submergence of land in the West Indian archipelago, as the cause of the present zoological separation of North and South America.43
On 12 October, Darwin declared, ‘I had intended to push my excursion further, but not being quite well, I was compelled to return by a balandra, or one-masted vessel of about a hundred tons burden, which was bound to Buenos Aires.’44
From Buenos Aries Darwin took a packet (passenger boat) for Montevideo, capital and chief port of Uruguay. From here, he embarked on yet another journey into the interior; this one being of three weeks duration.
6 December 1833. The Beagle sailed from the Rio Plata, never again to enter its muddy stream.45
One evening, when HMS Beagle was about ten miles offshore, Darwin observed ‘vast numbers of butterflies.46 Our course was directed to Port Desire [Argentina], on the coast of Patagonia’, at which place they arrived on 23 December. Here, Darwin observed that ‘the guanaco, or wild llama, is the characteristic quadruped of the plains of Patagonia; it is the South American representative of the camel of the East’.47
9 January 1834. Before it was dark the Beagle anchored in the fine, spacious harbour of Port St Julian, situated about one hundred and ten miles to the south of Port Desire.48 [Here] ‘a good-sized fly (Tabanus) was extremely numerous, and tormented us by its painful bite. The common horsefly, which is so troublesome in the shady lanes of England, belongs to this same genus.’49
(Horseflies of the genus Tabanus are known to be potential vectors of anthrax, worms, and trypanosomes – a trypanosome being a single-celled parasitic protozoan with a trailing flagellum, and a flagellum being a microscopic whip-like appendage which enables it to swim.50 The significance of this, for Darwin, will be discussed later.)
With the fossilized bones which he had discovered in mind, Darwin declared
It is impossible to reflect on the changed state of the American continent without the deepest astonishment. Formerly it must have swarmed with great monsters: now we find mere pigmies, compared with the antecedent, allied races. Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated extermination of its inhabitants.
We do not steadily bear in mind how profoundly ignorant we are of the conditions of existence of every animal, nor will we remember that some check is constantly preventing the too rapid increase of every organized being left in a state of nature. The supply of food, on an average, remains constant, yet the tendency in every animal to increase by propagation is geometrical … .51
In this latter comment, Darwin was voicing the warnings of economist and clergyman Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), who will be discussed later. Yet, in his own mind, the seeds of the great theory for which he was to become famous were beginning to germinate.
In February, when Beagle was anchored in the Bay of Port Famine in the Strait of Magellan (navigable sea route between mainland South America and Tierra del Fuego), Darwin undertook the ascent of the 2,600-foot-high Mount Tarn.52 However, as far as flora and fauna were concerned, he was disappointed.
The zoology of Tierra del Fuego, as might have been expected from the nature of its climate and vegetation, is very poor.53 The absence of any species whatever in the whole class of reptiles is a marked feature in the zoology of this country, as well as in that of the Falkland Islands.54
28 February 1834. … the Beagle anchored in a beautiful little cove at the eastern entrance of the Beagle Channel [strait separating islands in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, and named after HMS Beagle following her first voyage to south America].55
16 March found HMS Beagle again at the Falkland Islands. In that month John M. Herbert, a friend from his Cambridge days, wrote to Darwin to say
At the present moment everybody is talking about & the London Papers are full of, a petition from all the good men & true at Cambridge in [favour] of Dissenters being admitted to the University.56
In the Strait of Magellan Darwin was very impressed with the Patagonians who, with ‘their large Guanaco mantles [llama-skin cloaks] & long flowing hair, have a very imposing appearance’. They were ‘semi-civilized’, and man
y of them could speak ‘a little Spanish’.57
13 April 1834. ‘The Beagle anchored within the mouth of the Santa Cruz [river, south-east Argentina]’, and her crew proceeded to explore its course using three whale boats [a ‘whale boat’ being a ship’s lifeboat and utility boat].
Said Darwin, ‘Patagonia, poor as she is in some respects, can however boast of a greater stock of small rodents than perhaps any other country in the world’.58
On 18 April Captain FitzRoy declared
Much of my own uneasiness was caused by reading works written by geologists who contradict, by implication, if not in plain terms, the authenticity of the Scriptures … . But [for] men who, like myself formerly, are willingly ignorant of the Bible, and doubt its divine inspiration, I can only have one feeling – sincere sorrow.59
In his Narrative, which contains numerous references to the Bible, FitzRoy reveals that he is looking for God’s handiwork in all that he sees before him. Also, that he is a Creationist who entertained absolutely no doubts as to the validity of Biblical teaching. Says he:
Have we a shadow of ground for thinking that wild animals or plants have improved since their creation? Can any reasonable man believe that the first of a race, species, or kind, was the most inferior? Then how for a moment could false philosophers, and those who have been led away by their writings, imagine that there were separate beginnings of savage races, at different times, and in different places? Yet I may answer this question myself; for until I had thought much on the subject, and had seen nearly every variety of the human race, I had no reason to give in opposition to doubts excited by such sceptical works, except a conviction that the Bible was true, that in all ages men had erred, and that sooner or later the truth of every statement contained in that record would be proved.60
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