by Charles Darwin
I was hooked on the book before I could decide whether to read it or not. travelogue had never been my choice of genre; and two books by Darwin were plenty (the origin of species; the descend of man). but "the voyage" was no ordinary travelogue. it was written by a young Darwin unburdened by anything mundane and equipped with everything exquisite for an extraordinary, easily one of the most famous natural explorations. not yet the iconic sage, the twenty-one years old had keen eyes, high spirit, insatiable curiosity and already very broad knowledge in geology, biology, human cultures and history. externally, he was not in want of money, could have as many helping hands from Captain on down on Beagle and seemed to have carried recommendation letters wherever he went. so the only thing for him to do was to keep observing and learning - anything and everything - that caught his attention.
1. The wonder and joy of nature
"One day, at Bahia, my attention was drawn by observing many spiders, cockroaches, and other insects, rushing in the greatest agitation across a bare piece of ground. A little way behind, every stalk and leaf was blackened by a small ant. The swarm having crossed the bare space, divided itself, and descended an old way. By this means many insects were fairly enclosed; and the efforts which the poor creatures made to extricate themselves from such a death were wonderful." Loc716
"That they (guanacos) are curious is certain; for if a person lies on the ground, and plays strange antics, such as throwing up his feet in the air, they will almost always approach by degrees to reconnoiter him." - Loc 2957
on the incredibly obnoxious Zorillo (a kind of skunk):
"Certain it is, that every animal most willingly makes room for the Zorillo." Loc 1489
"It is a curious fact that the horses have never left the eastern end of the island, although there is no natural boundary to prevent them from roaming, and that part of the island is not more tempting than the rest." - Loc 3376
"the tortoises from James Island are rounder, blacker, and have a better taste when cooked." - Loc 6831
"The surface appears from a distance as if clothed with coarse pasture, but this in truth is nothing but fern." - Loc 7222
"a crab and a cocoa-nut tree." - Loc 8001
3. Darwin can be humorous;
I used to think that the carrion vultures, man's constant attendants on these dreary plains, while seated on the little neighboring cliffs, seemed by their very patience to say, "Ah! when the Indians come we shall have a feast." - Loc2037
"It really requires little imagination to believe that the bird (el Turco, Megapodius Pteroptochos) is ashamed of itself, an it aware of its most ridiculous figure." - Loc 4748 (picture on the right)
"The inhabitants all recommend onions for the puna; as this vegetable has sometimes been given in Europe for pectoral complaints, it may possibly be of real service: -- for my part I found nothing so good as the fossil shells!" - Loc 5618
"Look at those heretics, they do not even get out of their beds!" - Loc 5971
"These lizards, when cooked, yield a white meat, which is liked by those whose stomaches soar above all prejudices." - Loc 6749
something he couldn't care less:
"The next day I obtained lodgings within a stone's throw of Napoleon's tomb;" - Loc 8361
3. Darwin observes and thinks aloud;
"This close agreement in structure and habits, in representative species coming from opposite quarters of a great continent, always strikes one as interesting, though of common occurrence." - Loc1020"As these circumstances, apparently so trifling, occur in two distant continents, we may feel sure that they are the necessary results of common causes. - Loc 1262
that large animals require a luxuriant vegetation, has been a general assumption which has passed from one work to another; but I do not hesitate to say that it is completely false, and that it has vitiated the reasoning of geologists on some points of great interest in the ancient history of the world." - Loc 1562
commenting on any kind of monument up high:
"The desire to signalize any event, on the highest point of the neighboring land, seems a universal passion with mankind." Loc 904
Scarcely anything which travelers have written about its extreme flatness can be considered as exaggeration. Yet I could never find a spot where, by slowly turning round, objects were not seen at greater distances in some directions than in others; and this manifestly proves inequality in the plain." Loc 2276
"The evidence of rarity preceding extinction is more striking in the successive tertiary strata, as remarked by several able observers; it has often been found that a shell very common in a tertiary stratum is now most rare, and has even long been thought to be extinct" - Loc 3113
"No fallacy is more common with naturalists, than that the numbers of an individual species depdend on its powers of propagation." - Loc 3552
"Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends - Loc 6584
“It was most striking to be surrounded by new birds, new reptiles, new shells, new insects, new plants, and yet by innumerable trifling details of structure, and even by the tones of voice and plumage of the birds, to have the temperate plains of Patagonia, or the hot dry deserts of Northern Chile, vividly brought before my eyes." - Loc 6812
"I formerly imagined that Australia would rise to be as grand and powerful a country as North America, but now it appears to me that such future grandeur is rather problematical." - Loc 7693
"Farewell, Australia! you are a rising child, and doubtless some day will reign a great princess in the South; but you are too great and ambitious for affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores without sorrow or regret." - Loc 7799
4. Darwin puts things into perspective;"The day has past delightfully. Delight itself, however, is a weak term to express the feelings of a naturalist who, for the first time, has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest." - Loc 329
The island would be generally considered as very uninteresting, but to any one accustomed only to an English landscape, the novel aspect of an utterly sterile land possesses a grandeur which more vegetation might spoil.- Loc 167
"It is easy to specific the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes; but it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion, which fill and elevate the mind." - Loc 563
"In England any person fond of natural history enjoys in his walks a great advantage, by always having something to attract his attention; but in these fertile climates, teeming with life, the attractions are so numerous, that he is scarcely able to walk at all. - Loc572
"Yet in passing over these scenes, without one bright object near, an ill-defined but strong sense of pleasure is vividly excited. One asked how many ages the plain had thus lasted, and how many more it was doomed thus to continue
None can reply - all seems eternal now.
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue,
Which teaches awful doubt. - Loc2992"
"Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants." - Loc 3097
"There is an inexpressible charm in thus living in the open air." - Loc 4517
"everyone must know the feeling of triumph and pride which a grand view from a height communicates to the mind." - Loc 4942
"The limit of man's knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest, which is perhaps increased by its close neighborhood to the realms of imagination." - Loc 4969
“It is a bitter and humiliating thing to see works, which have cost man so much time and labor, overthrown in one minute; yet compassion for the inhabitants was almost instantly banished, by the surprise in seeing a slate of things produced in a moment of time, which one was accustomed to attribute to a succession of ages. In my opinion, we have scarcely behold, since leaving England, any sight so deeply interesting." - Loc 5391
"Hence, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact -- that mystery of mysteries -- the first appearance of new beings on this earth." - Loc 6555
"These low hollow corral islands bear no proportion to the vast ocean out of which they abruptly rise; and it seems wonderful that such weak invaders are not overwhelmed by the all-powerful and never-tiring waves of that great sea, miscalled the Pacific." - Loc 6976
"However seldom the usefulness of an object can account for the pleasure of beholding it, in the case of these beautiful woods, the knowledge of their high productiveness no doubt enters largely into the feeling of admiration." - Loc 6994
"but it is as difficult not to form some opinion, as it is to form a correct judgement." - Loc 7671
"It has been said that the love of the chase is an inherent delight in man -- a relic of an instinctive passion. If so, I am sure the pleasure of living in the open air, with the sky for a roof and the ground for a table, is part of the same feeling; it is the savage returning to his wild and native habits." - Loc 8674
On creation of coral islands:
"We feel surprise when travelers tell us of the vast dimensions of the Pyramids and other great ruins, but how utterly insignificant are the greatest of these, when compared to these mountains of stone accumulated by the agency of various minute and tender animals! This is a wonder which does not at first strike the eye of the body, but after reflection, the eye of reason." - Loc 8043
where on the face of the earth can we find a spot on which close investigation will not discover signs of that endless cycle of change, to which this earth has been, is and will be subjected?" - Loc 8509
5. Darwin holds very strong moral indignation against slavery;
As long as the idea of slavery could be banished, there was something exceedingly fascinating in this simple and patriarchal style of living: it was such a perfect retirement and independent from the rest of world. - Loc 524
Darwin recounted his encounter with a slave, who mistook his excited gesture in conversation as an attempt to hit him and submitted immediately with fear:
"This man had been trained to a degradation lower than the slavery of the most helpless animal." Loc 550
"I did not anywhere meet a more civil and obliging man than this negro; it was therefore the more painful to see that he would not sit down and eat with us." - Loc 1411
"the brightest tints on the surrounding woods could not make me forget that forty hardened, profligate men were ceasing from their daily labors, like the slaves from Africa, yet without their holy claim for compassion." - Loc 7621
"I thank God, I shall never again visit a slave-country." - Loc 8579
"It makes one's blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty; but t is a consolation to reflect, that we at least have made a greater sacrifice than ever made by any nation, to expiate our sin." - Loc 8605
5. Darwin has many curious and often contradicting comments on "salvage people and cultures"
It was without exception the most curious and interesting spectacle I ever beheld: I could not have believed how wide was the difference between savage and civilized man: it is greater than between a wild and domesticated animal, inasmuch as in man there is a greater power of improvement." - Loc 9806
Fuegians all had far greater eyesight, thus Jemmy Button would taunt the officer who displeased him with:
"Me see ship, me no tell." - Loc 9806
"Nature by making habit omnipotent, and its effects hereditary, has fitted the Fuegian to the climate and the productions of his miserable country." - Loc 3803
"and they are half civilized, and proportionally demoralized." - Loc 4068
"And it is only because we are poor Indians, and know nothing; but it was not so when we had king." - Loc 5173
"There is also something very attractive in the simplicity and humble politeness of the poor inhabitants." - Loc 5200
"This independence of manners is probably a consequence of their long wars, and the repeated victories which they alone, of all the tribes in America have gained over the Spaniards." - Loc 5247
"I was pleased with nothing so much as with the inhabitants (Tahitians)." - Loc 6996
"It has been remarked that it requires little habit to make a dark skin more pleasing and natural to the eye of a European than his own color. A white man bathing by the side of a Tahitian was like a plant bleached by the gardener's art compared with a fine dark green one growing vigorously in the open fields." - Loc 6999
"We had a farewell view of the mountains of Tahiti -- the island to which every voyager has offered up his tribute of admiration." - Loc 7211
"The thoughtless aboriginal, blinded by these trifling advantages, is delighted at the approach of the white man, who seems predestined to inherit the country of his children." - Loc 7629
6. Darwin is critical of human ignorance and self deceit.
Commenting on a slave owner, who was otherwise a very kind man, he said
"It may be said there exists no limit to the blindness of interest and selfish habit." - Loc 545
"Every one here is fully convinced that this is the most just war, because it is against barvarians. Who would believe in this age that such atrocities could be committed in a Christian civiized country" - Loc 1874
"It struck me as rather characteristic, that this man should prefer his countrymen being thought the worst of traitors, rather than unskillful or cowardly." - Loc 2495
"Animals are so abundant in these countries, that humanity and self-interest are not closely united; therefore I fear it is that the former is here scarcely known." - Loc 2711
7. Darwin firmly on the other side;"...one old woman, who, sooner than again be led into slavery, dashed herself to pieces from the summit of the mountain. In a Roman matron this would have been called the noble love of freedom; in a poor negress it is mere brutal obstinacy." Loc 459
"The old indian father and his son escapted, and were free. What a fine picture one can form in one' mind, -- the naed, bronze-like figure of the old man with his little boy, riding like a Mazeppa on the white horse, thus leaving far behind hi the host of his pursuers!" - Loc 1911
"The Sierra Ventana was formerly a great place of resort; and three or four years ago there was much fighting there. My guide had been present when many Indians were killed: the women escaped to the op of the ridge, and fought most desperately with great stones; many thus saving themselves." - Loc 1993
"We saw in the shops many articles, such as horsecloths, belts, and garters, woven by the Indian women. The patterns were very pretty, and the colors brilliant: the workmanship of the garters was so good that an English merchant at Buenos Ayres maintained they must have been maufactured in England, till he found the tassels had been fastened by split sinew." - Loc 2128
"Wherever the Europeans has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal." - Loc 7512
"The varieties of man seem to act on each other in the same way as different species of animals -- the stronger always extirpating the weaker." - Loc 7515
10. His British pride;
How different would have been the aspect of this river if English colonists had by good fortune first sailed up the Plata! What noble towns would now have occupied its shores!" - Loc 2501
That country will have to learn, like every other South American state, that a republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honor." - Loc 2503
"The meridian of the Antipodes has likewise been passed; and now every league, it made us happy to think, was one league nearer to England. These Antipodes call to one's mind old recollections of childish doubt and wonder Only the other day I looked forward to this airy barrier as a definite point in our voyage homewards; but now I find it ad all such resting-places for the imagination, are like shadows, which a man moving onwards cannot catch. A gale of wind lasting for some days has lately given us full leisure to measure the future stages in our homeward voyage, and to wish most earnestly for its termination." - Loc 7217
"My first feeling was to congratulate myself that I was born an Englishman." - Loc 7462
"To hoist the British flag seems to draw with it as a certain consequence wealth, prosperity, and civilization." - Loc 8690
