About the Line it became weltering hot. We spent one day at St. Paul's, a little group of rocks about a quarter of a mile in circumference, peeping up in the midst of the Atlantic. There was such a scene here. Wickham (1st Lieutenant) and I were the only two who landed with guns and geological hammers, etc. The birds by myriads were too close to shoot; we then tried stones, but at last, proh pudor! my geological hammer was the instrument of death. We soon loaded the boat with birds and eggs. Whilst we were so engaged, the men in the boat were fairly fighting with the sharks for such magnificent fish as you could not see in the London market. Our boat would have made a fine subject for Snyders, such a medley of game it contained. We have been here ten weeks, and shall now start for Monte Video, when I look forward to many a gallop over the Pampas. I am ashamed of sending such a scrambling letter, but if you were to see the heap of letters on my table you would understand the reason...
I am glad to hear music flourishes so well in Cambridge; but it [is] as barbarous to talk to me of "celestial concerts" as to a person in Arabia of cold water. In a voyage of this sort, if one gains many new and great pleasures, on the other side the loss is not inconsiderable. How should you like to be suddenly debarred from seeing every person and place, which you have ever known and loved, for five years? I do assure you I am occasionally "taken aback" by this reflection; and then for man or ship it is not so easy to right again. Remember me most sincerely to the remnant of most excellent fellows whom I have the good luck to know in Cambridge--I mean Whitley and Watkins. Tell Lowe I am even beneath his contempt. I can eat salt beef and musty biscuits for dinner. See what a fall man may come to!
My direction for the next year and a half will be Monte Video.
God bless you, my very dear old Herbert. May you always be happy and prosperous is my most cordial wish.
Yours affectionately, CHAS. DARWIN.
CHARLES DARWIN TO F. WATKINS. Monte Video, River Plata, August 18, 1832.
My dear Watkins,
I do not feel very sure you will think a letter from one so far distant will be worth having; I write therefore on the selfish principle of getting an answer. In the different countries we visit the entire newness and difference from England only serves to make more keen the recollection of its scenes and delights. In consequence the pleasure of thinking of, and hearing from one's former friends, does indeed become great. Recollect this, and some long winter's evening sit down and send me a long account of yourself and our friends; both what you have, and what [you] intend doing; otherwise in three or four more years when I return you will be all strangers to me. Considering how many months have passed, we have not in the "Beagle" made much way round the world. Hitherto everything has well repaid the necessary trouble and loss of comfort. We stayed three weeks at the Cape de Verds; it was no ordinary pleasure rambling over the plains of lava under a tropical sun, but when I first entered on and beheld the luxuriant vegetation in Brazil, it was realizing the visions in the 'Arabian Nights.' The brilliancy of the scenery throws one into a delirium of delight, and a beetle hunter is not likely soon to awaken from it, when whichever way he turns fresh treasures meet his eye. At Rio de Janeiro three months passed away like so many weeks. I made a most delightful excursion during this time of 150 miles into the country. I stayed at an estate which is the last of the cleared ground, behind is one vast impenetrable forest. It is almost impossible to imagine the quietude of such a life. Not a human being within some miles interrupts the solitude. To seat oneself amidst the gloom of such a forest on a decaying trunk, and then think of home, is a pleasure worth taking some trouble for.
We are at present in a much less interesting country. One single walk over the undulatory turf plain shows everything which is to be seen.