C. Darwin to J. S. Henslow. MY DEAR HENSLOW, Devonport, November 15, 1831. The orders are come down from the Admiralty, and everything is finally settled. We positively sail the last day of this month, and I think before that time the vessel will be ready. She looks most beautiful, even a landsman must admire her. We all think her the most perfect vessel ever turned out of the Dockyard. One thing is certain, no vessel has been fitted out so expensively, and with so much care. Everything that can be made so is of mahogany, and nothing can exceed the neatness and beauty of all the accommodations. The instructions are very general, and leave a great deal to the Captain's discretion and judgment, paying a substantial as well as a verbal compliment to him. set of ChronomIn short, every No vessel ever left England with such a eters, viz. twenty-four, all very good ones. thing is well, and I have only now to pray for the sickness to moderate its fierceness, and I shall do very well. Yet I should not call it one of the very best opportunities for natural history that has ever occurred. The absolute want of room is an evil that nothing can surmount. I think L. Jenyns did very wisely in not coming, that is judging from my own feelings, for I am sure if I had left college some few years, or been those years older, I never could have endured it. The officers (excepting the Captain) are like the freshest freshmen, that is in their manners, in everything else widely differRemember me most kindly to him, and tell him if ever he dreams in the night of palm-trees, he may in the morning comfort himself with the assurance that the voyage would not have suited him. ent. I am much obliged for your advice, de Mathematicis. I suspect when I am struggling with a triangle, I shall often wish myself in your room, and as for those wicked sulky surds, I do not know what I shall do without you to conjure them. I know one or two My time passes away very pleasantly. pleasant people, foremost of whom is Mr. Thunder-and-lightning Harris,* whom I dare say you have heard of. My chief employment is to go on board the Beagle, and try to look as much like a sailor as I can. I have no evidence of having taken in man, woman or child. I am going to ask you to do one more commission, and I trust it will be the last. When I was in Cambridge, I wrote to Mr. Ash, asking him to send my College account to my father, after having subtracted about £30 for my furniture. This he has forgotten to do, and my father has paid the bill, and I want to have the furniture-money transmitted to my father. Perhaps you would be kind enough to speak to Mr. Ash. I have cost my father so much money, I am quite ashamed of myself. I will write once again before sailing, and perhaps you will write to me before then. Remember me to Professor Sedgwick and Mr. Peacock. CHAS. DARWIN. C. Darwin to J. S. Henslow. MY DEAR HENSLOW, Devonport, December 3, 1831. It is now late in the evening, and to-night I am going to sleep on board. On Monday we most certainly sail, so you may guess in what a desperate state of confusion we are all in. If you were to hear the various exclamations of the officers, you would suppose we had scarcely had a week's notice. I am just in the same way taken all aback, and in such a bustle I hardly know what to do. The number of things to be done is infinite. I look forward even to sea-sickness with something like satisfaction, anything must be better than this state of anxiety. I am very much obliged for your * William Snow Harris, the Electrician. last kind and affectionate letter. I always like advice from you, and no one whom I have the luck to know is more capable of giving it than yourself. Recollect, when you write, that I am a sort of protégé of yours, and that it is your bounden duty to lecture me. I will now give you my direction; it is at first, Rio; but if you will send me a letter on the first Tuesday (when the packet sails) in February, directed to Monte Video, it will give me very great pleasure; I shall so much enjoy hearing a little Cambridge news. Poor dear old Alma Mater! I am a very worthy son in as far as affection goes. I have little more to write about I cannot end this without telling you how cordially I feel grateful for the kindness you have shown me during my Cambridge life. Much of the pleasure and utility which I may have derived from it is owing to you. I long for the time when we shall again meet, and till then believe me, my dear Henslow, Your affectionate and obliged friend, CH. DARWIN. Remember me most kindly to those who take any interest in me. CHAPTER VI. THE VOYAGE. "THERE is a natural good-humoured energy in his letters just like himself."-From a letter of Dr. R. W. Darwin's to Prof. Henslow. [THE object of the Beagle voyage is briefly described in my father's 'Journal of Researches,' p. 1, as being "to complete the Survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, commenced under Captain King in 1826 to 1830; to survey the shores of Chile, Peru, and some island in the Pacific; and to carry a chain of chronometrical measurements round the world." The Beagle is described as a well-built little vessel, of 235 tons, rigged as a barque, and carrying six guns. She belonged to the old class of ten-gun brigs, which were nicknamed "coffins," from their liability to go down in severe weather. They were very "deep-waisted," that is, their bulwarks were high in proportion to their size, so that a heavy sea breaking over them might be highly dangerous. Nevertheless, she lived through the five years' work, in the most stormy regions in the world, under Commanders Stokes and Fitz-Roy, without a serious accident. When re-commissioned in 1831 for her second voyage, she was found (as I learn from Admiral Sir James Sulivan) to be so rotten that she had practically to be rebuilt, and it was this that caused the long delay in refitting. The upper deck was raised, making her much safer in heavy weather, and giving her far more com fortable accommodation below. By these alterations and by the strong sheathing added to her bottom she was brought up to 242 tons burthen. It is a proof of the splendid seamanship of Captain Fitz-Roy and his officers that she returned. without having carried away a spar, and that in only one of the heavy storms that she encountered was she in great danger. She was fitted out for the expedition with all possible care, being supplied with carefully chosen spars and ropes, six boats, and a " dinghy; " lightning conductors, "invented by Mr. Harris, were fixed in all the masts, the bowsprits, and even in the flying jib-boom." To quote my father's description, written from Devonport, November 17, 1831: “Everybody, who can judge, says it is one of the grandest voyages that has almost ever been sent out. Everything is on a grand scale. Twenty-four chronometers. The whole ship is fitted up with mahogany; she is the admiration of the whole place. In short, everything is as prosperous as human means can make it." Owing to the smallness of the vessel, every one on board was cramped for room, and my father's accommodation seems to have been small enough: "I have just room to turn round," he writes to Henslow, "and that is all." Admiral Sir James Sulivan writes to me: "The narrow space at the end of the chart-table was his only accommodation for working, dressing, and sleeping; the hammock being left hanging over his head by day, when the sea was at all rough, that he might lie on it with a book in his hand when he could not any longer sit at the table. His only stowage for clothes being several small drawers in the corner, reaching from deck to deck; the top one being taken out when the hammock was hung up, without which there was not length for it, so then the foot-clews took the place of the top drawer. For specimens he had a very small cabin under the forecastle." Yet of this narrow room he wrote enthusiastically, September 17, 1831 :-" When I wrote last I was in great alarm about my cabin. The cabins were not then marked out, but |