52 CHARLES DARWIN 



Captain Fitzroy on a former visit, had accompanied the 

 ' Beagle ' through all her wanderings, and from them 

 Darwin obtained that close insight into the workings of 

 savage human nature which he afterwards utilised with 

 such conspicuous ability in the 'Descent of Man.' 

 Through Magellan's Straits the party made their way 

 up the coasts of Chili, and Darwin had there an oppor- 

 tunity of investigating the geology and biology of the 

 Cordillera. The year 1835 was chiefly spent in that 

 temperate country and in tropical Peru ; and as the 

 autumn went on, the ' Beagle ' made her way across a 

 belt of the Pacific to the Galapagos archipelago. 



Small and unimportant as are those little equatorial 

 islands from the geographical and commercial point of 

 view, they will yet remain for ever classic ground to the 

 biologists of the future from their close connection with 

 the master-problems of the ' Origin of Species.' Here 

 more, perhaps, than anywhere else the naturalist of the 

 ' Beagle ' found himself face to face in real earnest with 

 the ultimate questions of creation or evolution. A 

 group of tiny volcanic islets, never joined to any land, 

 nor even united to one another, yet each possessing its 

 own special zoological features the Galapagos roused 

 to an* extraordinary degree the irresistible questionings 

 of Darwin's mind. They contain no frogs, and no 

 mammal save a mouse, brought to them, no doubt, by 

 some passing ship. The only insects are beetles, which 

 possess peculiar facilities for being transported in the 

 egg or grub across salt water upon floating logs. There 

 are two kinds of snake, one tortoise, and four lizards j 

 but, in striking contrast to this extreme poverty of 

 terrestrial forms, there are at least fifty-five distinct 



