THE SHIP. 219 



dressing, and sleeping ; the hammock being left hanging over 

 his head by day, when the sea was at all rough, that he might 

 lie on it with a book in his hand when he could not any 

 longer sit at the table. His only stowage for clothes being 

 several small drawers in the corner, reaching from deck to 

 deck ; the top one being taken out when the hammock was 

 hung up, without which there was not length for it, so then 



- 



the foot-clews took the place of the top drawer. For sped 

 mens he had a very small cabin under the forecastle." 



Yet of this narrow room he wrote enthusiastically, Sep- 

 tember 17, 1831 : "When I wrote last I was in great alarm 

 about my cabin. The cabins were not then marked out, 

 but when I left they were, and mine is a capital one, cer- 

 tainly next best to the Captain's and remarkably light. My 

 companion most luckily, I think, will turn out to be the officer 

 whom I shall like best Captain Fitz-Roy says he will take 

 care that one corner is so fitted up that I shall be com- 

 fortable in it and shall consider it my. home, but that also I 

 shall have the run of his. My cabin is the drawing one ; and 

 in the middle is a large table, on which we two sleep in 

 hammocks. But for the first two months there will be no 

 drawing to be done, so that it will be quite a luxurious room, 

 and good deal larger than the Captain's cabin." 



My father used to say that it was the absolute necessity of 

 tidiness in the cramped space on the Beagle that helped ' to 

 give him his methodical habits of working.' On the Beagle, 

 too, he would say, that he learned what he considered the 

 golden rule for saving time ; i.e., taking care of the minutes. 



Sir James Sulivan tells me that the chief fault in the outfit 

 of the expedition was the want of a second smaller vessel to 

 act as tender. This want was so much felt by Captain 

 Fitz-Roy that he hired two decked boats to survey the coast 

 of Patagonia, at a cost of 1100, a sum which he had to 

 supply, although the boats saved several thousand pounds to 

 the country. He afterwards bought a schooner to act as a 



