Volume I Part 16 (1/2)

Adislative Council of Sydney, and Mr Usborne, are a the number Admiral Johnson died almost at the same time as my father

He retained to the last a le”, and of the friends he made on board her To his children their nae, and we caught his feeling of friendshi+p formore than names

It is pleasant to kno affectionately his old companions rehout my father's lifetime, one of his best and truest friends He writes:--”I can confidently express le”, he was never known to be out of temper, or to say one unkind or hasty word OF or TO any one You will therefore readily understand how this, coy and ability, led to our giving him the name of 'the dear old Philosopher'” (His other nickname was ”The Flycatcher” I have heard le”

showing another boatswain over the shi+p, and pointing out the officers: ”That's our first lieutenant; that's our doctor; that's our flycatcher”) Admiral Mellersh writes to me:--”Your father is as vividly in o that I was in the ”Beagle”

with hiotten by any who saw them and heard them I was sent on two or three occasions away in a boat with him on some of his scientific excursions, and always looked forward to these trips with great pleasure, an anticipation that, unlike many others, was always realised I think he was the only ainst whom I never heard a word said; and as people when shut up in a shi+p for five years are apt to get cross with each other, that is saying a good deal Certainly ere always so hard at work, we had no time to quarrel, but if we had done so, I feel sure your father would have tried (and have been successful) to throw oil on the troubled waters”

Ad, Mr Usborne, and Mr Hamond, all speak of their friendshi+p with him in the same warm-hearted way

Of the life on board and on shore his letters give some idea Captain Fitz-Roy was a strict officer, and hly respected both by officers and men The occasional severity of his manner was borne with because every one on board knew that his first thought was his duty, and that he would sacrifice anything to the real welfare of the shi+p My father writes, July 1834, ”We all jog on very well together, there is no quarrelling on board, which is so every one in turn” The best proof that Fitz-Roy was valued as a coe of the ”Adventure” and ”Beagle”,' vol ii page 21) of the crew had sailed with hie, and there were a few officers as well as seale” during the whole of that expedition

My father speaks of the officers as a fine determined set of lorious fellow” The latter being responsible for the sly objected to his littering the decks, and spoke of specimens as ”d--d beastly devilment,” and used to add, ”If I were skipper, I would soon have you and all your d--d mess out of the place”

A sort of halo of sanctity was given toin the Captain's cabin, so that the midshi+pmen used at first to call him ”Sir,” a for fast friends with the younger officers He wrote about the year 1861 or 1862 to Mr PG King, MLC, Sydney, who, as before stated, was a le”:--”The remembrance of old days, e used to sit and talk on the boole”, will always, to the day of lad to hear of your happiness and prosperity”

Mr King describes the pleasure ster the delights of the tropical nights, with their balhted up by the passage of the shi+p through the never-ending streams of phosphorescent animalculae”

It has been assu suffered so much from sea-sickness This he did not himself believe, but rather ascribed his bad health to the hereditary fault which caenerations I am not quite clear as to how much he actually suffered fro to his own memory, he was not actually ill after the first three weeks, but constantly unco from his letters, and from the evidence of soot the extent of the disco June 3, 1836, fro forto its close, for I positively suffer o”

Admiral Lort Stokes wrote to the ”Ti a corner forendurance in the cause of science of that great naturalist, my old and lost friend, Mr Charles Darhose re-place in Westminster Abbey?

”Perhaps no one can better testify to his early and ether for several years at the sa her celebrated voyage, he with his microscope and myself at the charts It was often a very lively end of the little craft, and distressingly so to reatly from sea-sickness After perhaps an hour's work he would say to me, 'Old fellow, Ithe best relief position from shi+p motion; a stretch out on one side of the table for some time would enable hiain to lie down

”It was distressing to witness this early sacrifice of Mr Darwin's health, who ever afterwards seriously felt the ill-effects of the 'Beagle's' voyage”

Mr AB Usborne writes, ”He was a dreadful sufferer from sea-sickness, and at times, when I have been officer of the watch, and reduced the sails,hiood officer,' and he would resume his microscopic observations in the poop cabin” The ale” shows that he was habitually in full vigour; he had, however, one severe illness, in South Alishman, Mr Corfield, who tended him with careful kindness I have heard him say that in this illness every secretion of the body was affected, and that when he described the syuess as to the nature of the disease My father was so up of his health was to soive a love of home, and all connected with it, from his father down to Nancy, his old nurse, to whoht in hoes as:--”But if you knew the glowing, unspeakable delight, which I felt at being certain that o, you would not grudge the labour lost in keeping up the regular series of letters”

Or again--his longing to return in words like these:--”It is too delightful to think that I shall see the leaves fall and hear the robin sing next autus are those of a schoolboy to the sed for his holidays as h nearly half the world is between e what I shall do, where I shall go during the first week”

Another feature in his letters is the surprise and delight hich he hears of his collections and observations being of soradually occurred to him that he would ever be reat men were to make use And even as to the value of his collections he seems to have had an to think that my collections were so poor that you were puzzled what to say; the case is now quite on the opposite tack, for you are guilty of exciting all s to a most cohts, I vow it shall not be spared”

After his return and settlean to realise the value of what he had done, and wrote to Captain Fitz-Roy--”However others e, now that the sotten, I think it far the MOST FORTUNATE CIRcumSTANCE IN MY LIFE that the chance afforded by your offer of taking a Naturalist fell on htful pictures of what I saw on board the 'Beagle' pass before my eyes

These recollections, and what I learnt on Natural History, I would not exchange for twice ten thousand a year”

[In selecting the following series of letters, I have been guided by the wish to give as iven only a few scientific letters, to illustrate the way in which he worked, and how he regarded his own results In his 'Journal of Researches' he gives incidentally soiven in the present chapter serve to amplify in fresher and more spontaneous words that iiven to so many readers]

CHARLES DARWIN TO RW DARWIN Bahia, or San Salvador, Brazils [February 8, 1832]

I find after the first page I have been writing tothis on the 8th of February, one day's sail past St

Jago (Cape de Verd), and intend taking the chance ofwith a homeward-bound vessel somewhere about the equator The date, however, will tell this whenever the opportunity occurs I will now begin froive a short account of our progress

We sailed, as you know, on the 27th of Deceh to have had from that time to the present a fair and moderate breeze It afterwards proved that we had escaped a heavy gale in the Channel, another at Madeira, and another on [the] Coast of Africa But in escaping the gale, we felt its consequences--a heavy sea In the Bay of Biscay there was a long and continuous swell, and the uessed at I believe you are curious about it I will give you all ht experience nobody who has only been to sea for twenty-four hours has a right to say that sea-sickness is even uncoins when you are so exhausted that a little exertionbut lying in ood I must especially except your receipt of raisins, which is the only food that the stomach will bear

On the 4th of January ere not , and the island lay to ard, it was not thought worth while to beat up to it It afterwards has turned out it was lucky we saved ourselves the trouble I was et up to see the distant outline On the 6th, in the evening, we sailed into the harbour of Santa Cruz I now first felt even hts of fresh fruits growing in beautiful valleys, and reading Hulorious viehen perhaps you uess at our disappointment, when a small pale man informed us we must perform a strict quarantine of twelve days There was a death-like stillness in the shi+p till the Captain cried ”up jib,” and we left this long-wished for place