The Voyage of the Beagle

Classic from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature language: English abstract: AFTER having been twice driven back by heavy southwestern gales Her Majesty's ship Beagle a ten-gun brig under the command of Captain Fitz Roy R. N. sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December 1831. The object of the expedition was to complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego commenced under Captain King in 1826 to 1830 -- to survey the shores of Chile Peru and of some islands in the Pacific -- and to carry a chain of chronometrical measurements round the World. On the 6th of January we reached Teneriffe but were prevented landing by fears of our bringing the cholera: the next morning we saw the sun rise behind the rugged outline of the Grand Canary island and suddenly illuminate the Peak of Teneriffe whilst the lower parts were veiled in fleecy clouds. This was the first of many delightful days never to be forgotten. On the 16th of January 1832 we anchored at Porto Praya in St. Jago the chief island of the Cape de Verd archipelago.The neighbourhood of Porto Praya viewed from the sea wears a desolate aspect. The volcanic fires of a past age and the scorching heat of a tropical sun have in most places rendered the soil unfit for vegetation. The country rises in successive steps of table-land interspersed with some truncate conical hills and the horizon is bounded by an irregular chain of more lofty mountains. The scene as beheld through the hazy atmosphere of this climate is one of great interest; if indeed a person fresh from sea and who has just walked for the first time in a grove of cocoa-nut trees can be a judge of anything but his own happiness. The island would generally be considered as very uninteresting but to anyone accustomed only to an English landscape the novel aspect of an utterly sterile land possesses a grandeur which more vegetation might spoil. A single green leaf can scar