Evolution's Captain

by Peter Nichols

  19

  Early voyagers called them the Enchanted Islands, but not because of anything they offered a passing sailor. They were hard to find, elusive, chimerical. They lay in a belt of fitful winds and humid cloud known as the Doldrums. Strong ocean currents played around them. With skies too overcast for celestial navigation, their ships drifting in unknown directions and spinning on ocean gyres, early navigators felt as if their instruments and the sea itself around these islands were bewitched. FitzRoy’s task was to fix their location exactly.

  Darwin’s was to discover the clues that would underwrite his enduring fame. He would do it quickly: his momentous visit to the Galapagos Islands lasted just thirty-four days, and it would be more than a year later until he had any idea what he had really found there.

  After the lushness of the tropics and the epic grandeur of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, Darwin found the islands disappointing. They were hot and uncharming. “All the plants have a wretched, weedy appearance, and I did not see one beautiful flower.” The flowers he did find were “insignificant, ugly little flowers.” He took great pains to collect insects but, “excepting Tierra del Fuego, I never saw in this respect so poor a country. Even in the upper and damp region I procured very few,” and those he found were “of very small size and dull colours.”

  The tortoises were more fun.

  The inhabitants believe that these animals are absolutely deaf; certainly they do not overhear a person walking close behind them. I was always amused when overtaking one of these great monsters, as it was quietly pacing along, to see how suddenly, the instant I passed, it would draw in its head and legs, and uttering a deep hiss fall to the ground with a heavy sound, as if struck dead. I frequently got on their backs, and then giving a few raps on the hinder part of their shells, they would rise up and walk away;—but I found it very difficult to keep my balance.

  He found the iguana lizards “most disgusting.”

  He noticed what everyone notices, or used to, in the Galapagos Islands: “The birds are strangers to man and think him as innocent as their countrymen the huge tortoises. Little birds, within three or four feet, quietly hopped about the bushes and were not frightened by stones being thrown at them. Mr King killed one with his hat and I pushed off a branch with the end of my gun a large hawk.”

  Most notably, Darwin observed and collected a number of birds with very different beaks. At the time, he believed these different beaks indicated different genera, or kinds, of birds: thrushes, finches, blackbirds.

  It was not until much later, when his specimens had been examined by experts in England, that Darwin learned what was remarkable about his collections from the Galapagos Islands: the majority of all the animals and flowering plants were aboriginal. They were not found anywhere else.

  While Darwin fossicked and collected, the Beagle sailed through the islands on its surveying mission.

  One of the ship’s anchorages was Post Office Bay on Floreana Island. The name had sprung from a custom established by whaling ships, mostly those from Nantucket and New Bedford, that had been calling at the Galapagos Islands since the 1780s, almost fifty years before the Beagle’s arrival. Not only did the islands lie across the migratory path of whales; they provided the whaleships with large numbers of tortoises, which lumbered around their decks until slaughtered for fresh meat. In this sheltered bay, a whale-oil barrel had been erected with a small roof over it to hold letters which could be deposited and collected by newly arrived and homebound vessels. On voyages often lasting three or four years, such a mail drop was a treasure trove for seamen anxious for news of their families.

  “Since the island has been peopled the box (barrel) has been empty, for letters are now left at the settlement,” wrote FitzRoy. He was mistaken. The tradition held among the whalers for much of the nineteenth century and was continued by cruisers aboard sailing yachts well into the twentieth century. In December 1928, American William Albert Robinson, bound from New York around the world aboard the 32-foot ketch Svaap, posted a letter here. The barrel in which he left his letter was “a new one erected not long ago by the St George—a British scientific expedition. But a few feet back in the brush I found a very old weathered cask with the letters U.S. MAIL still faintly visible. It was the last remaining trace of what was probably the world’s most romantic postal service.” Robinson’s letter followed him shortly afterward, taken on to Tahiti by the Illyria, a brigantine on a scientific cruise of the South Seas.

  In December 1933, Irving and Electa Johnson and their crew aboard the 92-foot schooner Yankee left a letter in “the barrel stuck on top of a pole…and many months later found it had worked: a passing yacht had acted as mailman.”

  John Caldwell, a newly discharged American GI, stopped here in his 29-foot boat Pagan in July 1946. Caldwell had left his Australian war bride Mary in Sydney almost a year earlier and, with the immediate postwar scarcity of transportation, had been unable to get back to her since by plane or ship. In desperation, stranded in Panama, he bought Pagan, a rundown cutter, and headed across the Pacific without knowing how to sail or navigate. He did manage to reach Post Office Bay and left the bulky letter he’d been writing to Mary, wrapped with a five-dollar bill and a rubber band, in “the parched ornamental barrel” he found on the beach. His voyage had already been hellish, and Caldwell was very uncertain that he’d live to make it across the Pacific to his wife.

  Five dollars from my small remaining funds was a lot; but I wanted Mary to get that letter, and if five dollars would insure it—and I felt it would—then the money didn’t matter. I stood by the traditional landmark for a moment wondering if the letter would ever reach Mary….

  As I rowed out to Pagan I was oblivious to the dismal countenance of the surroundings or the growing cold. My mind was across the Pacific. It was also with the letter in the barrel. An unholy melancholy was on me. I was swept with the futile remorse of great desire, hindered by need of lengthy patience, and burdened by uncertainty.

  Caldwell “posted” his letter on July 22 and sailed away the next day. Some vessel picked it up because ten weeks later, in early October, Mary received it in Sydney. It informed her that he hoped to arrive in Pagan around the end of September. In other words, he was then at least a week late. But Pagan didn’t make it. Caldwell survived a hurricane, but shipwrecked on the reefs of the Fiji Islands. He lived, though, to crawl ashore across the rocks and eventually make his way by copra ship, motor bus, and army bomber to Sydney, where he was reunited with Mary on December 3, 1946. (John Caldwell wrote the full story of this adventure in his book Desperate Voyage.)

  Watered, wooded, and carrying “thirty large terrapin on board,” the Beagle dropped the Galapagos Islands astern on October 20 and sailed southwest across the Pacific.

  FitzRoy’s instructions, beyond the South American survey, were to take only what time he needed to make celestial observations that would establish a chain of consecutive longitude distances around the globe, back to the vessel’s starting point at Plymouth—back to that rock in Plymouth breakwater which had been the starting point for all his longitude observations. The rest of the world, after South America, was covered with the thoroughness of a five-day, ten-country bus trip across Europe. The ship spent only ten days in both Tahiti and New Zealand. The speed of the return voyage, the light duty now that surveying was largely behind them, gave the men aboard the relative leisure to view the world as regular tourists.

  FitzRoy was astonished at the size of Sydney. “I saw a well-built city covering the country near the port.” But he didn’t think it would last, and, like many since, he had a low opinion of Australian culture.

  It is difficult to believe that Sydney will continue to flourish in proportion to its rise. It has sprung into existence too suddenly. Convicts have forced its growth, even as a hot-bed forces plants, and premature decay may be expected from such early maturity….

  There must be great difficulty in bringing up a family well in that country, in conseq
uence of the demoralizing influence of convict servants, to which almost all children must be more or less exposed. Besides, literature is at a low ebb; most people are anxious about active farming, or commercial pursuits, which leave little leisure for reflection, or for reading more than those fritterers of the mind, daily newspapers and ephemeral trash.

  Map from FitzRoy’s Narrative showing the Beagle’s track around the world. (Narrative of HMS Adventure and Beagle, by Robert FitzRoy)

  The Beagle remained in Sydney only two weeks. As the ship moved across the globe toward England, its crew grew hungrier for home. None more so than her captain, on whom the weight of the voyage had taken a visible toll. Phillip Parker King, FitzRoy’s commander aboard HMS Adventure on the Beagle’s first voyage, had moved to Sydney, and FitzRoy called upon him there. King was appalled at the change in his former youthful commander, now still only thirty years old.

  Sydney, 2 February 1836

  My dear Beaufort,

  You will have heard from FitzRoy who has been here a fortnight and sailed on the 30th for Van Diemens Land on his return. I regret to say he has suffered very much and is yet suffering much from ill health—he has had a very severe shake to his constitution which a little rest in England will I hope restore for he is an excellent fellow and will I am satisfied yet be a shining ornament to our service….

  Very truly yours

  Phillip P. King

  And Darwin, in a letter home at the same time, echoed King’s concern, and added one more thought.

  From Sydney we go to Hobart Town, from thence to King George Sound and then adios to Australia. From Hobart Town being super-added to the list of places I think we shall not reach England before September: But thank God the captain is as home sick as I am, and I trust he will rather grow worse than better…. I have been for the last twelve months on very cordial terms with him. He is an extraordinary but noble character, unfortunately, however, affected with strong peculiarities of temper. Of this, no man is more aware than himself, as he shows by his attempts to conquer them.

  I often doubt what will be his end; under many circumstances I am sure it would be a brilliant one, under others I fear a very unhappy one.

  PART FOUR

  20

  The Beagle dropped anchor in Falmouth, England, on October 2, 1836. On her voyage of 58 months, 43 had been spent in South America. From Peru, she had sailed home in just 13 months, all aboard her ready to be done with the voyage, their thoughts fastened upon England and home.

  Darwin, who had been seasick through one last gale in the Bay of Biscay as the Beagle worked her way up to the Western Approaches, was packed and thoroughly ready. He disembarked at once. That night (“a dreadfully stormy one”) he started north from Falmouth by mail coach to Shrewsbury and reached The Mount, the Darwin family home, at breakfast time on Wednesday, October 5.

  “Why, the shape of his head is quite altered,” said his father to Darwin’s gaping sisters. Though neither Darwin nor his father were adherents of phrenology, both seemed to have believed, as FitzRoy did about his Fuegians, that concentration and employment of mental powers could affect the shape of the cranium. Darwin cites this observation by his father, “the most acute observer whom I ever saw,” as evidence that “my mind became developed through my pursuits during the voyage.” In fact, Darwin was balding prematurely. While away at sea he had lost most of the hair on top of his head.

  The Beagle was an instant dockside attraction. In Falmouth, newspapers announced her arrival from around the world. People crowded the quays to see her, board her, put their hands upon her as they would today the space shuttle, and to question her crew about storms and savages. Her captain’s company was eagerly sought. On October 3, the day after her arrival, FitzRoy was invited to the home of Robert Were Fox, Falmouth’s eminent Quaker scientist. His daughter, Caroline Fox, recorded the visit in her journal.

  October 3.—Captain FitzRoy came to tea. He returned yesterday from a five years’ voyage, in HMS Beagle, of scientific research round the world, and is going to write a book. He came to see papa’s dipping needle deflector, with which he was highly delighted…. He stayed till after eleven, and is a most agreeable, gentlemanlike young man. He has had a delightful voyage, and made many discoveries, as there were several scientific men on board.

  The Beagle sailed on to Plymouth and Portsmouth to receive visits from Admiralty bigwigs, “repectable-looking people,” (who came aboard by the accommodation ladder) and “others” (humbler sightseers who were permitted to climb into the ship on a rough plank).

  Darwin wrote to FitzRoy from Shrewsbury, offering sympathy at finding himself once more in “that horrid Plymouth,” where he had languished for so many months before beginning the voyage. But the time had been well spent for FitzRoy, as he revealed in his reply to Darwin.

  Dearest Philos…that horrid place contains a treasure to me which even you were ignorant of!! Now guess and think and guess again. Believe it, or not,—the news is true—I am going to be married!!!!!! to Mary O’Brien. Now you may know that I had decided on this step, long, very long ago. All is settled and we shall be married in December.

  On top of all the anxieties FitzRoy had suffered through his mission, there had been the question many seamen take with them when they leave a loved one at home: Will she still be there?

  The Beagle sailed on up the Channel and into the Thames to Greenwich, where she let go her anchor on the zero meridian and FitzRoy made his final observations of the voyage. The ship remained at Greenwich for two and a half weeks for visits by the Astronomer Royal and other guests, then dropped downstream on the tide to Woolwich Dockyard, where she had been built and launched sixteen years before. On November 17 the ship decommissioned, her crew paid off.

  Many of the seamen and officers who left the ship and parted from one another had been aboard the Beagle on both her voyages, under FitzRoy’s command for more than six years. They had faced something very like war during those years; together they had fought the sea, the Fuegians, and the most ferocious weather on Earth, and many times they had saved one another’s lives. A few of their number had died. FitzRoy did not write about it, but disbanding beside the Beagle on the dock in Woolwich that day would have been as emotional and wrenching for those seamen as the breakup of a tight battalion of long-serving soldiers at the end of a world war. The men went home, or they found berths aboard other ships. Some of the officers went on to notable careers. Most of the crew simply disappear from record.

  FitzRoy went home to Onslow Square in London to prepare for his wedding and begin the work of overseeing the drawing and production of new, wonderfully accurate nautical charts from his years of prodigious surveying.

  Darwin felt awkward at home. He had left as a boy just graduated from university and come back a grown man, an adventurer, a working scientist. He’d spent years galloping around South America with gauchos and soldiers, eating wild animals over camp fires, trading with natives, roaming through jungles, sharing desperate adventures with tough seamen.

  The Mount was filled with sisters. They fussed over him. They expected him now to stay at home and settle into life as a country gentleman, to pick up again the threads of his preparation to be a country parson. But Darwin had been around the world, and while travel no longer held any attraction, the disciplines of the natural sciences, in which he had steeped himself for five years, and the community of his fellow scientists, now beckoned and urged him on to new exploration. He could not go home again.

  Towards the close of our voyage I received a letter whilst at Ascension [Island], in which my sisters told me that Sedgwick had called on my father and said that I should take a place among the leading scientific men. I could not at the time understand how he could have learnt anything of my proceedings, but I heard (I believe afterwards) that Henslow had read some of the letters which I wrote to him before the Philosophical Soc. of Cambridge and had printed them for private distribution. My collection of fossil bones, which had be
en sent to Henslow, also excited considerable attention among palæontologists. After reading this letter I clambered over the mountains of Ascension with a bounding step and made the volcanic rocks resound under my geological hammer!

  Darwin came home to the fruit of his tremendous industry over the course of the last five years. His collection amounted to a full museum’s worth of the world’s natural marvels: whole groups of plants and insects, birds, small and large animals and reptiles, corals, shellfish and other sea creatures and invertebrates, bones, fossils, rocks, and minerals. His labeling, cataloging, wrapping, drying, and bottling of specimens had been meticulous and thorough.

  Everything had gone to Darwin’s mentor, Professor Henslow in Cambridge, who unpacked each box and crate on arrival, checked its condition and need for further preservation, and stored it for Darwin’s return. Henslow had been unable to resist putting out word of the magnificent collection accumulating, or publishing extracts of Darwin’s letters to him. He had spent five years paving the way for Darwin’s reappearance, so that in the world of the professors and the burgeoning natural sciences, Darwin was already famous. Charles Lyell wanted to meet him, the Geological Society wanted to elect him a Fellow. Museums everywhere wanted his bones and butterflies. There was no going back, no more search for a career. He had become somebody. All that running away from his studies—beetle collecting, riding, hunting, and shooting—had found him a destiny.

  After ten days at home, he escaped to London, to stay with his older brother Erasmus. His life there became frantic with activity—tea parties with the Lyells, irresistible invitations from leading scientists. In December he moved to Cambridge, to the site of his collection. There, with the help of his Beagle assistant, Syms Covington, he began to look through everything, to unravel his voyage, to see what he had really done.