CHARLES DARWIN I 37 



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 luxuries, the loss of domestic society, and 

 even of music and the other pleasures of imagina- 

 tion. When such trifles are mentioned, it is evi- 

 dent 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 differ- 

 ence 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 circum- 

 navigate the globe. Resides the vast improve- 

 ments in ships and naval resources, the whole 

 western shores of America are thrown open, and 

 Australia has become the capital of a rising con- 

 tinent. How different are the circumstances 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 

 civilised world. 



If a person suffers much from sea-sickness, let 

 him weigh it heavily in the balance. I speak from 

 experience : it is no trifling evil, cured in a week. 



