Voyage of the Beagle

Charles Darwin`s travels around the world as an independent naturalist on HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836 impressed upon him a sense of the natural world`s beauty and sublimity which language could barely capture. Words, he said, were inadequate to convey to those who have not visited the inter-tropical regions, the sensation of delight which the mind experiences`.

Yet in a travel journal which takes the reader from the coasts and interiors of South America to South Sea Islands, Darwin`s descriptive powers are constantly challenged, but never once overcome. In addition, The Voyage of the Beagle displays Darwin`s powerful, speculative mind at work, posing searching questions about the complex relation between the Earth`s structure, animal forms, anthropology and the origins of life itself.