1836.] RETROSPECT. 501 



.eft the Beagle, having lived on board the good little vessel 

 nearly five years. 



Our Voyage having come to an end, I will take a short retro- 

 spect of the advantages and disadvantages, the pains and pleasures, 

 of our circumnavigation of the world. If a person asked my ad- 

 vice, before undertaking a long voyage, my answer would depend 

 upon his possessing a decided taste for some branch of knowledge, 

 which could by this means be advanced. No doubt it is a high 

 satisfaction to behold various countries and the many races of 

 mankind, but the pleasures gained at the time do not counter- 

 balance the evils. It is necessary to look forward to a harvest, 

 however distant that may be, when some fruit will be reaped, 

 some good effected. 



Many of the losses which must be experienced are obvious ; 

 such as that of the society of every old friend, and of the sight 

 of those places with which every dearest remembrance is so inti- 

 mately connected. These losses, however, are at the time partly 

 relieved by the exhaustless delight of anticipating the long wished- 

 for day of return. If, as poets say, life is a dream, I am sure in 

 a voyage these are the visions which best serve to pass away the 

 long night. Other losses, although not at first felt, tell heavily 

 after a period : these are the want of room, of seclusion, of rest; 

 the jading feeling of constant hurry ; the privation of small luxu- 

 ries, the loss of domestic society, and even of music and the other 

 pleasures of imagination. When such trifles are mentioned, it is 

 evident that the real grievances, excepting from accidents, of a 

 sea-life are at an end. The short space of sixty years has made 

 an astonishing difference in the facility of distant navigation. 

 Even in the time of Cook, a man who left his fireside for such 

 expeditions underwent severe privations. A yacht now, with 

 every luxury of life, can circumnavigate the globe. Besides the 

 vast improvements in ships and naval resources, the whole western 

 shores of America are thrown open, and Australia has become 

 the capital of a rising continent. How different are the circum- 

 stances to a man shipwrecked at the present day in the Pacific, 

 to what they were in the time of Cook ! Since his voyage a 

 hemisphere has been added to the civilized world. 



If a person suffer much from sea-sickness, let him weigh il 



