92 DARWINIANISM. 



and killed him with his geological hammer ; he interposed 

 between a huge penguin and the sea, and fought him 

 sturdily. (" It was a brave bird ; and till reaching the 

 sea, it regularly fought and drove me backwards ; nothing 

 less than heavy blows would have stopped him ; every 

 inch he gained he firmly kept, standing close before me 

 erect and determined," etc.) " He and one other man 

 were alone able to fetch water for a large party of officers 

 and sailors utterly prostrated." He was often absent, 

 when the ship was in port, on long excursions on horse- 

 back, which, in South America especially, were always 

 adventurous, requiring endurance of much privation, and 

 attended by constant dangers from Gauchos and Indians, 

 as well as from armies and squads of revolutionary 

 soldiers not a bit better than bandits. Then his know- 

 ledge and the curious things he could relate to them, his 

 shipmates. Not a bird passed, not a fish leapt, not an 

 insect alighted, but he knew it and named it, and could 

 tell all about it. Sailors, midshipmen, gun-room officers, 

 captain all saw him, admired him, respected him, loved 

 him. The gun-room officers stood bravely forward for 

 him, and invited him to their mess, even then when the 

 captain himself in a moment of temper pouted at him. 

 And there and then, too, Charles Darwin was himself ! 



Captain Fitz-Roy was not always a pleasant man to 

 deal with. We have a note of this in the first letter of 

 Charles to his father from the sea (i. 232): "Hitherto 

 the voyage has answered admirably to me, and yet I am 

 now more fully aware of your wisdom in throwing cold 

 water on the whole scheme I should be very cautious 

 in encouraging another," etc. " We had several quarrels," 

 says Mr. Darwin himself ; and then he relates how Cap- 

 tain Fitz-Eoy " and captains of men-of-war are the 

 greatest men going, far greater than kings or school- 

 masters " took umbrage at him for something he had 



