31st January 1834

[Eastern Magellan]

St of Magellan
The Ship came to an anchor in Shoal Harbor; but it was found inconvenient; she then doubled Cape Negro & again anchored in Lando Bay. The boats were lowered & a party went on shore — no good water could be found.

30th January 1834

St of Magellan
A large party went on shore to barter for mantles &c. The whole population of the Toldos were arranged on a bank, having brought with them Guanaco skins, ostrich feathers &c &c. The first demand was for fire-arms & of course not giving them these, tobacco was the next; indeed knives, axes &c were of no esteem in comparison to tobacco. It was an amusing scene & it was impossible not to like these mis-named giants, they were so throughily good-humoured & unsuspecting. An old woman, well known by the name of Santa Maria, recognized Mr Rowlett as belonging formerly to the Adventure & as having seen him a year & a half ago at the R. Negro, to which place a part of this tribe had then gone to barter their goods. Our semi-civilized friends expressed great anxiety for the ship to return & one old man wanted to accompany us. Got under weigh & beat up to Elizabeth island & there came to an anchor. Some Patagonians, near Peckets harbor made three large fires, as did also the Fuegians on the more distant Southern shore. Which signs of their proximity we are sorry to see.

29th January 1834

St of Magellan
Came to an anchor in St Gregory Bay; these days we have beaten against strong Westerly gales. The tide here rises between 40 & 50 feet & runs at the rate of between 5 & 6 miles per hour. Who can wonder at the dread of the early navigators of these Straits? On shore there were the Toldos of a large tribe of Patagonian Indians. Went on shore with the Captain & met with a very kind reception. These Indians have such constant communication with the Sealers, that they are half civilized. They talk a good deal of Spanish & some English. Their appearance is however rather wild. They are all clothed in large mantles of the Guanaco, & their long hair streams about their faces. They resemble in their countenance the Indians with Rosas, but are much more painted; many with their whole faces red, & brought to a point on the chin, others black. One man was ringed & dotted with white like a Fuegian. The average height appeared to be more than six feet; the horses who carried these large men, were small & ill fitted for their work. When we returned to the boat, a great number of Indians got in; it was a very tedious & difficult operation to clear the boat; The Captain promised to take three on board, & every one seemed determined to be one of them. At last we reached the ship with our three guests. At tea they behaved quite like gentlemen, used a knife & fork & helped themselves with a spoon. Nothing was so much relished as Sugar. They felt the motion & were therefore landed.

28th January 1834

Captain Fitzroy’s Journal:
Very heavy rain fell during the night of the 28th. I mention it thus particularly, because some persons have said that rain never falls on the east coast of Patagonia, in any quantity.

27th January 1834

From “The Voyage of the Beagle”:

Extinction through man
In the cases where we can trace the extinction of a species through man, either wholly or in one limited district, we know that it becomes rarer and rarer, and is then lost: it would be difficult to point out any just distinction between a species destroyed by man or by the increase of its natural enemies. The evidence of rarity preceding extinction, is more striking in the successive tertiary strata, as remarked by several able observers; it has often been found that a shell very common in a tertiary stratum is now most rare, and has even long been thought extinct. If then, as appears probable, species first become rare and then extinct -- if the too rapid increase of every species, even the most favoured, is steadily checked, as we must admit, though how and when it is hard to say -- and if we see, without the smallest surprise, though unable to assign the precise reason, one species abundant and another closely allied species rare in the same district -- why should we feel such great astonishment at the rarity being carried one step further to extinction? An action going on, on every side of us, and yet barely appreciable, might surely be carried a little further, without exciting our observation. Who would feel any great surprise at hearing that the Magalonyx was formerly rare compared with the Megatherium, or that one of the fossil monkeys was few in number compared with one of the now living monkeys? and yet in this comparative rarity, we should have the plainest evidence of less favourable conditions for their existence. To admit that species generally become rare before they become extinct -- to feel no surprise at the comparative rarity of one species with another, and yet to call in some extraordinary agent and to marvel greatly when a species ceases to exist, appears to me much the same as to admit that sickness in the individual is the prelude to death -- to feel no surprise at sickness -- but when the sick man dies to wonder, and to believe that he died through violence.

26th January 1834

Port. Desire to St.s of Magellan
With a fair wind, we passed the white cliffs of Cape Virgins & entered those famous Straits.

25th January 1834

From “The Voyage of the Beagle”:
Can we believe that the Capybara has taken the food of the Toxodon, the Guanaco of the Macrauchenia, the existing small Edentata of their numerous gigantic prototypes? Certainly, no fact in the long history of the world is so startling as the wide and repeated exterminations of its inhabitants.

Nevertheless, if we consider the subject under another point of view, it will appear less perplexing. We do not steadily bear in mind, how profoundly ignorant we are of the conditions of existence of every animal; nor do we always remember, that some check is constantly preventing the too rapid increase of every organized being left in a state of nature. The supply of food, on an average, remains constant, yet the tendency in every animal to increase by propagation is geometrical; and its surprising effects have nowhere been more astonishingly shown, than in the case of the European animals run wild during the last few centuries in America. Every animal in a state of nature regularly breeds; yet in a species long established, any _great_ increase in numbers is obviously impossible, and must be checked by some means. We are, nevertheless, seldom able with certainty to tell in any given species, at what period of life, or at what period of the year, or whether only at long intervals, the check falls; or, again, what is the precise nature of the check.

Hence probably it is, that we feel so little surprise at one, of two species closely allied in habits, being rare and the other abundant in the same district; or, again, that one should be abundant in one district, and another, filling the same place in the economy of nature, should be abundant in a neighbouring district, differing very little in its conditions. If asked how this is, one immediately replies that it is determined by some slight difference, in climate, food, or the number of enemies: yet how rarely, if ever, we can point out the precise cause and manner of action of the check! We are therefore, driven to the conclusion, that causes generally quite inappreciable by us, determine whether a given species shall be abundant or scanty in numbers.

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Next Diary post on the 26th...

24th January 1834

From “The Voyage of the Beagle”:

A puzzle for Darwin
It is impossible to reflect on the changed state of the American continent without the deepest astonishment. Formerly it must have swarmed with great monsters: now we find mere pigmies, compared with the antecedent, allied races. If Buffon had known of the gigantic sloth and armadillo-like animals, and of the lost Pachydermata, he might have said with a greater semblance of truth that the creative force in America had lost its power, rather than that it had never possessed great vigour. The greater number, if not all, of these extinct quadrupeds lived at a late period, and were the contemporaries of most of the existing sea-shells. Since they lived, no very great change in the form of the land can have taken place. What, then, has exterminated so many species and whole genera?

The mind at first is irresistibly hurried into the belief of some great catastrophe; but thus to destroy animals, both large and small, in Southern Patagonia, in Brazil, on the Cordillera of Peru, in North America up to Behring's Straits, we must shake the entire framework of the globe. An examination, moreover, of the geology of La Plata and Patagonia, leads to the belief that all the features of the land result from slow and gradual changes.

It appears from the character of the fossils in Europe, Asia, Australia, and in North and South America, that those conditions which favour the life of the larger quadrupeds were lately co-extensive with the world: what those conditions were, no one has yet even conjectured. It could hardly have been a change of temperature, which at about the same time destroyed the inhabitants of tropical, temperate, and arctic latitudes on both sides of the globe. In North America we positively know from Mr. Lyell, that the large quadrupeds lived subsequently to that period, when boulders were brought into latitudes at which icebergs now never arrive: from conclusive but indirect reasons we may feel sure, that in the southern hemisphere the Macrauchenia, also, lived long subsequently to the ice-transporting boulder-period.

Did man, after his first inroad into South America, destroy, as has been suggested, the unwieldy Megatherium and the other Edentata? We must at least look to some other cause for the destruction of the little tucutuco at Bahia Blanca, and of the many fossil mice and other small quadrupeds in Brazil. No one will imagine that a drought, even far severer than those which cause such losses in the provinces of La Plata, could destroy every individual of every species from Southern Patagonia to Behring's Straits. What shall we say of the extinction of the horse? Did those plains fail of pasture, which have since been overrun by thousands and hundreds of thousands of the descendants of the stock introduced by the Spaniards? Have the subsequently introduced species consumed the food of the great antecedent races?

Next Diary post on the 26th...

23rd January 1834

Port. Desire to St.s of Magellan
After Latitude observations at noon we made sail for the Straits of Magellan.

22nd January 1934

Port. Desire to St.s of Magellan
The Adventure & Beagle stood out to sea. At sunset the Adventure steered for West Falkland Island & we came to an anchor under Watchman Cape.

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During those days when Darwin did not make an entry into his diary, I will be posting excerpts from the book he wrote working from his recorded notes: "The Voyage of the Beagle". Regular readers will have observed that I actually started this around 10 days ago! I’ll try to use his more interesting, and important comments and questions!

(Roger R.)

20th January 1834

[Upper Part of Port Desire Inlet]

Port Desire
I landed directly the ship came to an anchor, & had some collecting. On an headland projecting into the sea, I found a heap of stones similar to the ones already described. There was a tooth & head of thigh bone, all crumbling into earth, in a few years no traces would be left: This explains the apparent absence of bones in the grave, made with so much labor, on the top of the hill. The Adventure is ready for sea & with her new square top-sail will doubtless sail well.

19th January 1834

Port Desire
Made sail very early in the morning, & with a fair breeze ran up to Port Desire; next day anchored off the mouth & with the young flood entered the harbor.

18th January 1834

From “The Voyage of the Beagle”:
Everything in this southern continent has been effected on a grand scale: the land, from the Rio Plata to Tierra del Fuego, a distance of 1200 miles, has been raised in mass (and in Patagonia to a height of between 300 and 400 feet), within the period of the now existing sea-shells. The old and weathered shells left on the surface of the upraised plain still partially retain their colours. The uprising movement has been interrupted by at least eight long periods of rest, during which the sea ate, deeply back into the land, forming at successive levels the long lines of cliffs, or escarpments, which separate the different plains as they rise like steps one behind the other. The elevatory movement, and the eating-back power of the sea during the periods of rest, have been equable over long lines of coast; for I was astonished to find that the step-like plains stand at nearly corresponding heights at far distant points. The lowest plain is 90 feet high; and the highest, which I ascended near the coast, is 950 feet; and of this, only relics are left in the form of flat gravel-capped hills. The upper plain of Santa Cruz slopes up to a height of 3,000 feet at the foot of the Cordillera. I have said that within the period of existing sea-shells, Patagonia has been upraised 300 to 400 feet: I may add, that within the period when icebergs transported boulders over the upper plain of Santa Cruz, the elevation has been at least 1,500 feet. Nor has Patagonia been affected only by upward movements: the extinct tertiary shells from Port St. Julian and Santa Cruz cannot have lived, according to Professor E. Forbes, in a greater depth of water than from 40 to 250 feet; but they are now covered with sea-deposited strata from 800 to 1000 feet in thickness: hence the bed of the sea, on which these shells once lived, must have sunk downwards several hundred feet, to allow of the accumulation of the superincumbent strata. What a history of geological changes does the simply-constructed coast of Patagonia reveal!

17th January 1834

Captain Fitzroy’s Journal:
A place honoured by the Spaniards with the name of Malaspina, and described as a port, was found to be a wretched cove, full of rocks, hardly safe even for the Liebre. While moored there, our party witnessed lightning set fire to bushes and grass. The flames spread rapidly, and for two days, the face of the country continued to blaze. Near Port Arredondo, Mr. Wickham went to the tops of several hills; he found the country unproductive, except of a few bushes, and yellow wiry grass. There were no traces of natives.

From “The Voyage of the Beagle”:
The geology of Patagonia is interesting. Differently from Europe, where the tertiary formations appear to have accumulated in bays, here along hundreds of miles of coast we have one great deposit, including many tertiary shells, all apparently extinct. The most common shell is a massive gigantic oyster, sometimes even a foot in diameter. These beds are covered by others of a peculiar soft white stone, including much gypsum, and resembling chalk, but really of a pumiceous nature. It is highly remarkable, from being composed, to at least one-tenth of its bulk, of Infusoria. Professor Ehrenberg has already ascertained in it thirty oceanic forms. This bed extends for 500 miles along the coast, and probably for a considerably greater distance. At Port St. Julian its thickness is more than 800 feet! These white beds are everywhere capped by a mass of gravel, forming probably one of the largest beds of shingle in the world: it certainly extends from near the Rio Colorado to between 600 and 700 nautical miles southward, at Santa Cruz (a river a little south of St. Julian), it reaches to the foot of the Cordillera; half way up the river, its thickness is more than 200 feet; it probably everywhere extends to this great chain, whence the well-rounded pebbles of porphyry have been derived: we may consider its average breadth as 200 miles, and its average thickness as about 50 feet. If this great bed of pebbles, without including the mud necessarily derived from their attrition, was piled into a mound, it would form a great mountain chain! When we consider that all these pebbles, countless as the grains of sand in the desert, have been derived from the slow falling of masses of rock on the old coast-lines and banks of rivers, and that these fragments have been dashed into smaller pieces, and that each of them has since been slowly rolled, rounded, and far transported the mind is stupefied in thinking over the long, absolutely necessary, lapse of years. Yet all this gravel has been transported, and probably rounded, subsequently to the deposition of the white beds, and long subsequently to the underlying beds with the tertiary shells.

16th to 18th January 1834

Port St Julian
Bad weather preventing the completion of the survey has detained us these days.

15th January 1834

Port St Julian
A heavy gale of wind from the SW; several breezes from that quarter have reminded us of the neighbourhead of Tierra del Fuego.

14th January 1834

Port St Julian
Went out walking, & found some fine fossil shells. The country precisely resembles that of Port Desire, it is a little more uneven & from the absence even of brackish water, there are fewer animals. The Guanacoe who drinks salt water is of course to be seen. Two things have been found here for which we cannot account: on a low point, there is a large Spanish oven built of bricks, & on the top of a hill a small wooden cross was found. Of what old navigators these are the relics it is hard to say. Magellan was here & executed some mutineers; as also did Drake & called the Island "true justice".

13th January 1834

From “The Voyage of the Beagle”:
Although we could nowhere find, during our whole visit, a single drop of fresh water, yet some must exist; for by an odd chance I found on the surface of the salt water, near the head of the bay, a Colymbetes not quite dead, which must have lived in some not far distant pool. Three other insects (a Cincindela, like hybrida, a Cymindis, and a Harpalus, which all live on muddy flats occasionally overflowed by the sea), and one other found dead on the plain, complete the list of the beetles. A good-sized fly (Tabanus) was extremely numerous, and tormented us by its painful bite. The common horsefly, which is so troublesome in the shady lanes of England, belongs to this same genus. We here have the puzzle that so frequently occurs in the case of musquitoes -- on the blood of what animals do these insects commonly feed? The guanaco is nearly the only warm-blooded quadruped, and it is found in quite inconsiderable numbers compared with the multitude of flies.

12th & 13th January 1834

Port St Julian
I was not much tired although I reached the boat in the first division; but the two next days was very feverish in bed.

Captain Fitzroy’s Journal:
The following week was passed in examining St. George Bay. Scarcely any stream of tide was found in its western part, though the rise amounted to nearly twenty feet. About Tilly road, where they landed, the mass or principal part of the soil, where visible in cliffs or ravines, is loose sandy clay (diluvium), with immense quantities of large fossil oyster shells imbedded in it. These shells were found every where, even on summits seven or eight hundred feet above the sea, and some of them weighed eight pounds.

11th January 1834

Port St Julian
Again I started with the Captain to the head of the harbour — it suddenly came on to blow hard — so the Captain ran the boat on shore & we & four of the boats crew all armed proceeded on foot. It turned out to a very long walk; in the evening two of the party could not walk any further & we were all excessively tired. It was caused by a most painful degree of thirst; & as we were only 11 hours without water, I am convinced it must be from the extreme dryness of the atmosphere. Earlier in the day we experienced a great mortification; a fine lake was seen from a hill; I & one of the men volunteered to walk there, & not till quite close did we discover that it was a field solid of snow-white salt. The whole party left their arms with the two who were knocked up & returned to the boat. Fresh men were then sent off with some water, & we made a signal fire, so that by 11 o’clock we were all collected & returned to the Ship.

Captain Fitzroy’s Journal:
Having rated their chronometers, the little vessels stood out to sea, in company with the North American sealer; but they had not sailed many miles before the wind increased to a gale, and still becoming stronger, bringing clouds of dust and sand off the land, they were reduced to bare poles, and drifted fast off-shore, as well as northward. When the fury of the gale was over, their balance-reefed foresails were set, and with their tillers unshipped they made very good weather, until they were driven near the tide-races off Cape Blanco, where some anxious hours were passed, half-buried in foam, and the wind again almost a hurricane. Towards evening, the storm abated; our water-soaked explorers succeeded in regaining a position under shelter of the land; and anchored next morning under Cape Blanco, to dry themselves and take observations. In this severe gale, the North American schooner split two close-reefed foresails, lost a boat, and was otherwise damaged.

Lieutenant Wickham and Mr. Mellersh walked a long way from Cape Blanco, to trace the coast, and look out for shoals in the offing; in doing which, they found numerous 'salinas' (extensive hollow places filled with salt), where the solid mass of very white and good salt was several feet in thickness. Guanacoes were numerous, but shy. On the rocks some fur-seal were seen; too few, however, to be worth a sealer's notice.

From “The Voyage of the Beagle”:
The country is nearly similar to that of Port Desire, but perhaps rather more sterile. One day a party accompanied Captain Fitz Roy on a long walk round the head of the harbour. We were eleven hours without tasting any water, and some of the party were quite exhausted. From the summit of a hill (since well named Thirsty Hill) a fine lake was spied, and two of the party proceeded with concerted signals to show whether it was fresh water. What was our disappointment to find a snow-white expanse of salt, crystallized in great cubes! We attributed our extreme thirst to the dryness of the atmosphere; but whatever the cause might be, we were exceedingly glad late in the evening to get back to the boats.

10th January 1834

Port St Julian
Went up to the head of the Harbour, the boat being aground on a mud-bank, we were all obliged to launch for a half mile through mud & water & did not reach the vessel till late at night & very cold we all were. In the dark we were puzzled by seeing another ship, it turned out to be a French whaler, which in the morning came over the bar neck or nothing. The French Government gives a great bounty to all Whalers, I suppose to encourage a breed of good seamen; but from what we have seen of them, it will be a difficult task, all the officers are brought up in the English trade & it is curious to hear every word of command in their boats given in English.

Syms Covington’s Journal:
Port St. Julian is similar, I may say, in almost every respect, to Port Desire, except that there has been no settlement. Also, the cliffs are full of fossil shells.

9th January 1834

From "The Voyage of the Beagle":

Before it was dark the Beagle anchored in the fine spacious harbour of Port St. Julian, situated about one hundred and ten miles to the south of Port Desire.

5th to 9th January 1834

Port Desire
During these days we surveyed the coast & at night either anchored or stood out to sea. There are many rocks & breakers lying some way from the land & a ship ought not to come near them. The table land of Port Desire, is continued to St Julian, but in many places interrupted by great vallies; & large patches have been entirely removed, so that the outline resembles fortifications. The Beagle anchored off the mouth of the harbour & the Captain went in to sound the bar. He landed me & I found some most interesting geological facts. At sunset we went on board, & the Captain took the ship into the harbor.

4th January 1834

Port Desire
The Adventure, not being ready for sea, the Captain determined to run down to Port St Julians about 110 miles to the South & to survey some of the intermediate coast. We floated with a strong tide out of harbour; it is called backing & filling from a particular manner of sailing the vessel & is a ticklish operation. Having passed the narrows, made sail: in a few minutes we struck rather heavily on a rock; the tide was ebbing, but with good fortune she struck only twice more & then went over. The Beagle, in her last voyage, struck in the night & as is now supposed, on the same rock, the summit is so small that the next day it could not be found by any efforts. On both occasions the Beagle has received no essential damage; for the which all in her ought to be grateful. At night we anchored off the coast.

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Captain Fitzroy’s Journal:
On the 4th of January both vessels anchored safely in Port Desire:—this was a bold stroke, but success attended it. They were thus placed at the southernmost point of the coast they were to survey, while the sun was farthest south; and as the days shortened, they would work along the coast northward. Recent traces of Indians were found; and the master of an American sealer told Mr. Wickham that they had been there in considerable numbers, about two months previously. The wells were all full; therefore much rain must have fallen during October, November, or December. I have mentioned elsewhere that although the eastern coast of Patagonia is usually an arid desert, there are periodical times, of short duration, at which rain falls abundantly.

3rd January 1834

Port Desire
During these days I have had some very long & pleasant walks. The Geology is interesting. I have obtained some new birds & animals. I also measured barometrically the height of the plain which must so lately have been beneath the sea; it has an altitude of 247 feet. Yesterday I shot a large Guanaco, which must, when alive, have weighed more than 200 pounds. Two males were fighting furiously & galloping like race horses with their ears down & necks low; they did not see me & passed within 30 yards; & then I settled the contest by shooting the Persecutor.

2nd January 1834

[Anchorage and Spanish Ruins, Port Desire]

Port Desire
A party of officers accompanied me to ransack the Indian grave in hopes of finding some antiquarian remains. The grave consisted of a heap of large stones placed with some care, it was on the summit of the hill, & at the foot of a ledge of rock about 6 feet high. In front of this & about 3 yards from it they had placed two immense fragments, each weighing at least two tuns, & resting on each other. These in all probability were originally in nearly the same position & only just moved by the Indians to answer their purpose. At the bottom of the grave on the hard rock, there was a layer of earth about a foot deep; this must have been brought from the plain below; the vegetable fibres, from the lodgement of water, were converted into a sort of Peat. Above this a pavement of flat stones, & then a large heap of rude stones, piled up so as to fill up the interval between the ledge & the two large stones. To complete the grave, the Indians had contrived to detach from the ledge an immense block (probably there was a crack) & throw it over the pile so as to rest on the two other great fragments. We undermined the grave on both sides under the last block; but there were no bones. I can only account for it, by giving great antiquity to the grave & supposing water & changes in climate had utterly decomposed every fragment. We found on the neighbouring heights 3 other & much smaller heaps of stones. They had all been displaced; perhaps by sealers or other Voyagers. It is said, that where an Indian dies, he is buried; but that subsequently his bones are taken up & carried to such situations as have been mentioned. I think this custom can easily be accounted for by recollecting, that before the importation of horses, these Indians must have led nearly the same life as the Fuegians, & therefore in the neighbourhood of the sea. The common prejudice of lying where your ancestors have lain, would make the now roaming Indians bring the less perishable part of their dead to the ancient burial grounds.

1st January 1834

Port Desire
Walked to a distant hill; we found at the top an Indian grave. The Indians always bury their dead on the highest hill, or on some headland projecting into the sea. I imagine it is for this reason they come here; that they do pay occasional visits is evident, from the remains of several small fires & horses bones near them.