Fossils, Finches and Fuegians: Charles Darwin’s Adventures and Discoveries on the Beagle. Richard Keynes
on he was wont to refer a little unfairly to the next two months as spent at ‘that horrid Plymouth’. From his letters to his sisters and the entries in the private journal that he kept from 24 October 1831 to 4 October 1836, it is evident that the principal defect of Plymouth in his eyes was its not infrequent storms and rain at the best of times, for ‘It does not require a rain gauge to show how much more rain falls in the Western than in the Central & Eastern parts of England.’ Even more aggravating had been the long series of south-westerly gales in December that forced the abandonment of several attempts to sail. Apart from this, however, Charles’s chief complaint was having had more social engagements than he wished, although they included dinners with the Commander-in-Chief Admiral Sir Manley Dixon at which everyone except for him was a naval officer and of course the conversation was almost exclusively nautical. However, he confessed that this made the evening very pleasant to him.
He dined with the ship’s nine gunroom officers for the first time on 29 October, and was regaled with horrific accounts of the manner in which he would be treated by Neptune on crossing the Equator. The following day he had lunch with the midshipmen, and after being taken for a sail to Millbrook, went for a long scrambling walk with Stokes and Charles Musters, a young Volunteer First Class hoping to become a midshipman. On other occasions he walked with various friends to Cawsand, Rame Head and Whitesand Bay, but his favourite walk, on which he took his brother Erasmus during a week’s farewell visit at the beginning of December, was to the park at Mount Edgcumbe, with what he described as its ‘birds eye view’ of Devonport, Stonehouse and Plymouth.
On 31 October Charles went with Stokes to the Plymouth Athenaeum, where space had been reserved to set up an ‘astronomical house’ for the Beagle in which observations were to be carried out with a dipping needle for the determination of the angular depression of the earth’s magnetic field. During the next weeks he had several sessions with FitzRoy at the needle, which he first described as a ‘very long & delicate operation’, though later he said less enthusiastically that he had been ‘unpleasantly employed in finding out the inaccuracies of Gambey’s new dipping needle’. At the Athenaeum one evening he attended a lecture by a Mr Harris on the virtues of the new system of lightning conductors with which the Beagle was fitted, and whose utility would be tested. He was taken out by FitzRoy to the breakwater protecting Plymouth Sound, where bearings were being taken to connect a particular stone, from which Captain King had based his longitudes for the previous voyage, with the quay at Clarence Baths where the true time was then taken. And he was assigned a regular task every morning of taking and comparing the differences in the Beagle’s barometers. His education in navigation and meteorology therefore proceeded apace.
Charles’s relations with FitzRoy were mostly very cordial, though he later recalled an example of the storms that could suddenly arise, and as quickly be quelled:
At Plymouth before we sailed, he was extremely angry with a dealer in crockery who refused to exchange some article purchased in his shop: the Captain asked the man the price of a very expensive set of china and said ‘I should have purchased this if you had not been so disobliging.’ As I knew that the cabin was amply stocked with crockery, I doubted whether he had any such intention; and I must have shown my doubts in my face, for I said not a word. After leaving the shop he looked at me, saying You do not believe what I have said, and I was forced to own that it was so. He was silent for a few minutes and then said You are right and I acted wrongly in my anger at the blackguard.
On 14 November FitzRoy moved his twenty-two chronometers on to the ship, but the paint was still wet in the poop cabin, so his books could not yet be arranged. A week later, Charles carried all his books and instruments on board the Beagle, after which two hard days’ work with Stokes reduced the poop cabin to ‘very neat order’. The Beagle had now sailed from Devonport to her moorings at Barnett Pool under Mount Edgcumbe ready for her final departure. On 28 November FitzRoy gave a magnificent luncheon for about forty people as a ship’s warming, with waltzing that continued until late in the evening.
On 4 December, in the first journal entry written on board ship, Charles wrote:
I intend sleeping in my hammock. I did so last night & experienced a most ludicrous difficulty in getting into it; my great fault of jockeyship was in trying to put my legs in first. The hammock being suspended, I thus only succeeded in pushing it away without making any progress in inserting my own body. The correct method is to sit accurately in centre of bed, then give yourself a dexterous twist & your head & feet come into their respective places. After a little time I daresay I shall, like others, find it very comfortable.
The next morning was tolerably clear, and sights were obtained, so now the Beagle was ready for her long-delayed moment of starting. But at midday a heavy gale blew up from the south, making the ship move so much that Charles was nearly sick, and ruling out any escape from the harbour. ‘In the evening dined with Erasmus,’ he wrote. ‘I shall not often have such quiet snug dinners.’ However, gales from that unlucky point south-west recurred daily, and Charles had more last dinners and one more walk to Mount Edgcumbe with Erasmus. On 10 December the wind dropped more hopefully, and the Beagle sailed at ten o’clock with Erasmus on board, dropping him off after doubling the breakwater. But in the evening the barometer gave notice of yet another gale, and after a wild and very uncomfortable night it was determined to put back to Plymouth and there remain for a more fortunate wind. Charles reflected ruefully that although he had done right to accept the offer of the voyage, ‘I think it is doubtful how far it will add to the happiness of one’s life. If I keep my health & return, & then have strength of mind quietly to settle down in life, my present & future share of vexation & want of comfort will be amply repaid.’
Two days later, while the weather still showed little sign of improvement, Charles made some serious resolutions:
An idle day; dined for the first time in Captain’s cabin & felt quite at home. Of all the luxuries the Captain has given me, none will be so essential as that of having my meals with him. I am often afraid I shall be quite overwhelmed with the numbers of subjects which I ought to take into hand. It is difficult to mark out any plan & without method on ship-board I am sure little will be done. The principal objects are 1st, collecting observing & reading in all branches of Natural history that I possibly can manage. Observations in Meteorology. French & Spanish, Mathematics, & a little Classics, perhaps not more than Greek Testament on Sundays. I hope generally to have some one English book to hand for my amusement, exclusive of the above mentioned branches. If I have not energy enough to make myself steadily industrious during the voyage, how great & uncommon an opportunity of improving myself shall I throw away. May this never for one moment escape my mind, & then perhaps I may have the same opportunity of drilling my mind that I threw away whilst at Cambridge.
The wind remained obstinately in the wrong point, until on 21 December there was a light north-westerly which encouraged the Beagle to try again to depart. After going aground off Drake’s Island and taking several hours to get off again, the ship sailed out of the harbour, and once in the open sea Charles was soon overcome by sickness and retreated first to the Captain’s cabin and then to his hammock. But during the night the wind strengthened and shifted back yet again to the south-west, and Charles awoke to find himself once more back in Plymouth Sound.
On Christmas Day, Charles went ashore to church, to find an old Cambridge friend preaching. He then lunched in the gunroom, where the dullness of the conversation made him ‘properly grateful for my good luck in living with the Captain’. In the meantime the crew exercised their traditional custom of making themselves so drunk that Midshipman King was obliged to perform the duty of sentry. Boxing Day was greeted with an excellent wind for sailing, but the ship was still in a state approaching anarchy, with the worst offenders in heavy chains. At long last, on 27 December, the Beagle tacked with some difficulty out of the harbour, accompanied by the Commissioner Captain Ross in what Charles described as his ‘Yatch’. After lunching with Captain Ross on mutton chops and champagne, Lieutenant Sulivan and Charles ‘joined the Beagle about 2 o’clock outside the Breakwater, & immediately with every sail filled by a light breeze we scudded away at the rate of 7 or 8 knots an hour – I was not sick that evening but went to bed early’. The voyage of the