CHARLES DARWIN. 107 



green from the larches, made an excessively pretty view. 

 At last I fell fast asleep on the grass, and awoke with a 

 chprus of birds singing around me, and squirrels running 

 up the trees, and some woodpeckers laughing ; and it was 

 as pleasant and rural a scene as ever I saw, and I did not 

 care one penny how any of the beasts or birds had been formed." 

 These words are so charmingly descriptive, that we may 

 give a brief space to an interpolation here of some other 

 proofs (at least at one time) on Mr. Darwin's part of a 

 general literary and intellectual power with which it has 

 not been usual to credit him. It is from the Journal 

 that I shall extract these. From p. 169, for example : 

 " This was the first night which I passed under the open 

 sky, with the gear of the recado (saddle of the Pampas) 

 for my bed. There is high enjoyment in the independ- 

 ence of the Gaucho life to be able at any moment to 

 pull up* your horse, and say, ' Here we will pass the 

 night. ' The death-like stillness of the plain, the dogs 

 keeping watch, the gipsy-group of Gauchos making their 

 beds round the fire, have left in my mind a strongly- 

 marked picture of this first night, which will never be 

 forgotten." From p. 20 this sentence is particularly 

 striking : " A few fireflies flitted by us ; and the solitary 

 snipe, as it rose, uttered its plaintive cry ; the distant 

 and sullen roar of the sea scarcely broke the stillness of 

 the night." One likes to hear Darwin giving way to 

 feeling, as here (p. 26) : " It is easy to specify the individual 

 objects of admiration in these grand scenes ; but it is not 

 possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of 

 wonder, astonishment, and devotion which fill and elevate 

 the mind." This from p. 329 is good description : " We 

 observed to the south a ragged cloud of a dark reddish- 

 brown colour. At first we thought that it was smoke from 

 some great fire ; but we soon found it was a swarm of 

 locusts flying at a rate of ten or fifteen miles an hour 



