THE VOYAGE. 



51 



Roy; and on looking at the name, I found it Ch. E. Sobieski 

 Stuart, Count d'Albanie, a descendant of the same mon- 

 arch. 



Fitz-Roy's temper was a most unfortunate one. It was 

 usually worst in the early morning, and with his eagle eye he 

 could generally detect something amiss about the ship, and 

 was then unsparing in his blame. He was very kind to me, 

 but was a man very difficult to live with on the intimate terms 

 which necessarily followed from our messing by ourselves in 

 the same cabin. We had several quarrels ; for instance, early 

 in the voyage at Bahia, in Brazil, he defended and praised 

 slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just 

 visited a great slave-owner, who had called up many of his 

 slaves and asked them whether they were happy, and whether 

 they wished to be free, and all answered " No." I then asked 

 him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the 

 answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth 

 anything? This made him excessively angry, and he said 

 that as I doubted his word we could not live any longer 

 together. I thought that I should have been compelled to 

 leave the ship ; but as soon as the news spread, which it did 

 quickly, as the captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage 

 his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving 

 an invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess with 

 them. But after a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his usual mag- 

 nanimity by sending an officer to me with an apology and a 

 request that I would continue to live with him. 



His character was in several respects one of the most 

 noble which I have ever known. 



The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most impor- \ 

 tant event in my life, and has determined my whole career ; \ 

 yet it depended on so small a circumstance as my uncle offer- i 

 ing to drive me thirty miles to Shrewsbury, which few uncles 

 would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of my 

 nose. I have always felt that I owe to the voyage the first 

 real training or education of my mind; I was led to attend 

 closely to several branches of natural history, and thus my 



