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Charles Darwin joined HMS Beagle on a round the world voyage of exploration, not as the ship's
naturalist as often assumed (the ship's doctor fulfilled that role) but as a gentleman companion to the
Captain, Fitz Roy. Clearly Darwin had a wonderful time; he wrote, "Delight is a weak term to express
the feelings of a naturalist who for the first time has wandered by himself in a Brazilian forest. The
elegance of the grasses, the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers, the glossy
green of the foliage, but above all the general luxuriance of the vegetation, filled me with
admiration……To a person fond of natural history, such a day as this brings with it a deeper pleasure
than he can ever hope to experience again." It is difficult for us today to imagine how marvellous an
adventure it was to go round the world as a sailing ship's naturalist at that time, we are so used to
magazines like National Geographic and brilliantly filmed full colour wildlife documentaries on TV. We
are also used to safe and comfortable travel, even to the furthest parts of the earth, while Darwin had
to endure all kinds of inconveniences and discomforts including the risk of violent death. The book is
worth reading as a travel book alone, although perhaps the most important aspect of it is as a
document of the development of Darwin's thoughts on natural history as ideas germinated in his head
during 5 years on the road and the sea in various wildly different natural environments.

He wrote of his stay near Rio: '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.' His wildlife notes are suffused with a sense of
wonder at the many and various natural wonders he saw, and
carefully observed writing about giant butterflies, vampire bats,
skunks, condors and their lice, pumas and jaguars (and their victims'
remains which told the tale of how the predators made their kills)
and discomfort, danger from potentially hostile Indians and hunting
Jaguars and Pumas as well as mosquitoes and hunger and thirst.

His descriptions of the Gauchos hunting and beef butchery and cookery are fascinating: monkeys,
fireflies, gigantic ant's nests, puffer fish, sharks, booby birds, sundry invertebrates and plants, plus
observations and reflections on the mountains, rocks and fossils he came across. He also recorded
extensive notes on the people he travelled and lived with. He was fascinated by the Galapagos
Islands, and later commented on the variations within the finch populations of several islands, using
this as evidence for evolution.

He wrote of the local populations as he travelled through South America: gauchos, villagers, soldiers
and slaves. He describes local customs and hospitality, hunting with the gauchos, and a humorous
incident in which he accidentally caught himself and his horse with the throwing balls (bolas). Many
interesting anecdotes are recounted and the difficulties are mentioned, including a degree of
lawlessness and the worrying knives and daggers which many men seemed to carry with them, and
were not infrequently used in fights. Clearly the journey was accompanied by some degree of personal
discomfort and risk. There are many descriptions of hardship. He records examples of the cruel
treatment of slaves which he observed in Brazil, clearly Darwin was moved with anger by the ill
treatment of his fellow humans and protested against mistreatment of others just because they were
considered 'barbarians'