270 OBITUARY x 



of an intelligent collector and note-taker. He was 

 fully conscious of the fact, and his ambition hardly 

 rose above the hope that he should bring back 

 materials for the scientific " lions " at home of 

 sufficient excellence to prevent them from turning 

 and rending him. (I. p. 248.) 



But a fourth educational experiment was to be 

 tried. This time Nature took him in hand herself 

 and showed him the way by which, to borrow 

 Henslow's prophetic phrase, " anything he pleased 

 might be done." 



The conditions of life presented by a ship-of-war 

 of only 242 tons burthen, would not, primd facie, 

 appear to be so favourable to intellectual develop- 

 ment as those offered by the cloistered retirement 

 of Christ's College. Darwin had not even a cabin 

 to himself; while, in addition to the hindrances 

 and interruptions incidental to sea-life, which can 

 be appreciated only by those who have had 

 experience of them, sea-sickness came on whenever 

 the little ship was " lively " ; and, considering the 

 circumstances of the cruise, that must have been 

 her normal state. Nevertheless, Darwin found on 

 board the " Beagle " that which neither the 

 pedagogues of Shrewsbury, nor the professoriate 

 of Edinburgh, nor the tutors of Cambridge had 

 managed to give him. " I have always felt that I 

 owe to the voyage the first real training or 

 education of my mind (I. p. 61) ; " and in a letter 

 written as he was leaving England, he calls the 



