ABSTRACT
Thus wrote Charles Darwin to his old friend Henslow before the Beagle had really got well started. He was a youngster of twenty-three and had just reached Brazil. The Beagle belonged to an old class of ten-gun brigs which were so prone to go down in rough seas that they were called “coffins.” Darwin in later years often referred to the discipline he had learned aboard the Beagle, and the lessons in tidiness because “tidiness was an absolute necessity.” Ten days later they called at the Cape Verde Islands, and Darwin at once began to set about the business of his trip. Darwin’s problem was to find words. He found epithet after epithet too weak to convey his sensation of delight. Darwin’s description of the reception these natives got from their friends and of the life of the natives in general of Tierra del Fuego, is among the most interesting passages in his Journal.
