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The Voyage of the Beagle
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Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Content Warning: The source material uses outdated and offensive terms to describe Indigenous peoples, and references enslavement, ethnic cleansing, imperialism, and suicide.
The HMS Beagle departs from Plymouth, England, on December 27, 1831; Charles Darwin is the ship’s scientist, responsible for collecting information and specimens along the way. After a brief stop in Tenerife—where the crew are prohibited from disembarking—the Beagle arrives at St. Jago, the largest island in the Capo Verde archipelago off the coast of Africa, on January 16. St. Jago is a desolate place with almost no vegetation; nevertheless, Darwin observes a variety of animals, including herds of cows and goats and various types of birds and lizards. He also observes the defensive mechanisms of sea slugs, which emit both dark ink and acidic oil, and cuttlefish, which can squirt water and change their colors.
While on St. Jago, Darwin and other members of the crew visit two former colonial outposts, Ribeira Grande and Fuentes. Darwin is surprised to find that despite the years of European influence in this area and the generally attractive appearance of the towns, the Indigenous people seem to be poor and unhappy.
At the end of February, the Beagle reaches the lush shores of San Salvador, Brazil. San Salvador is a welcome change from the desolate islands the Beagle has visited; Darwin describes wandering through the jungle as the deepest pleasure he’s encountered in his lifetime. On the Brazilian coast, Darwin encounters a blowfish, which demonstrates another defensive mechanism: squirting a bright red fluid that stains Darwin’s records.
Off the coast of Tierra del Fuego, Darwin encounters a truly bizarre phenomenon: a thick red stripe of crustaceans that look like prawns cutting through the water. Darwin remarks that this mass of creatures moves as quickly and uniformly as a troop of soldiers. He cannot explain their behavior.
Chapter 2 Summary
The second chapter of Darwin’s journal begins on April 4, 1832, as Darwin accepts an offer to travel upriver with an Englishman returning to his plantation. Early in the journey, they pass the location of a notorious massacre of formerly enslaved people. Darwin is particularly moved by the story of a woman who threw herself from a cliff rather than be re-enslaved.
Darwin complains about the poor accommodations available to travelers in this region. Most of their hosts offer basic food and uncomfortable furnishings and lack the European manners Darwin and his companions expect. The European plantations, however, present their own problems. While at a Brazilian plantation on the Rio Macae, Darwin encounters the brutal realities of slavery firsthand. The planter, in response to a petty lawsuit, decides to separate families, sending the enslaved women and children to a public auction in Rio. Darwin is generally disturbed by his encounters with enslaved people, although he also believes those working on less labor-intensive estates may be “contented.”
The majority of the second chapter details Darwin’s observations about a number of insects and invertebrates. Darwin collects and experiments on a variety of slug that can regenerate its body when cut in half. The regenerated slugs live for several weeks after being bisected but die when the Beagle’s voyage takes them to warmer climates. Darwin also identifies a species of butterfly that uses its legs to run and is capable of making noise, and he witnesses a deadly battle between a spider and a wasp.
Chapter 3 Summary
On July 5, 1832, the HMS Beagle arrives in Maldonado (now the capital of Uruguay). On his second night in Maldonado, Darwin witnesses a phenomenon he calls “St. Elmo’s light,” a luminous display of plasma caused by an atmospheric electric field. (It is unclear whether Darwin was familiar with the common sailor’s belief that this phenomenon indicated future lightning storms; however, the chapter ends with a description of the effect of frequent lightning strikes on the town of Maldonado.)
For the first time, Darwin describes the locals he encounters. At one point, he suggests that even the better informed among them incorrectly believe that England is a city within the country of London; he also expresses amazement that prosperous landowners are unfamiliar with his compass and matches and describes demonstrating the use of the compass in conjunction with a map. Elsewhere, he acknowledges his own shortcomings as a horseman in comparison to Uruguayan ranchers (whom he calls “Gauchos”).
Large sections of this chapter are dedicated to descriptions of birds, including the cowbird, which lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. He refers to the work of another naturalist, who argues that the development of parasitic nesting in a similar species, the cuckoo, is a result of the frequency with which they lay eggs. Darwin notes that the similarity in behavior between these two species seems significant. Darwin’s discomfort with carrion-feeding birds such as the turkey vulture and chimango does not deter him from describing every detail of their eating habits.
Some miles from Maldonado, Darwin examines a cluster of sand dunes that lightning has repeatedly struck, creating glassy tubes. Noting that the region seems prone to lightning, Darwin speculates that the meeting of fresh and saltwater might affect the electrical field.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
The opening chapters of The Voyage of the Beagle present Darwin as a curious, meticulous narrator. He studies and collects the insects crawling on the floor of the jungle while also recording the trees towering above him; practically no detail is ignored in Darwin’s journal, and nothing is too small to escape his notice. This care speaks to Darwin’s role as the Beagle’s scientist and his general commitment to empirical observation. However, it also reflects his personal investment in what he sees. Darwin’s journal reveals a great deal of emotion. He is particularly moved by “the great concert” of animals and insects singing outside his Rio home in a chapter that broadly demonstrates Darwin’s delight in the natural world (36). This temporary home is something of a haven after months at sea: He writes that “it was delicious to sit quietly in the garden, and watch the evening pass into night” (35). The joy that Darwin takes in the diversity of the natural world informs and enhances the precision of his scientific research. The structure of this section—three chapters focusing on sea life, invertebrates, and birds, respectively—indicates Darwin’s broad range of interests.
The early chapters of the journal also describe Darwin’s first encounters with non-Europeans and at times reflect a colonial belief in European superiority, introducing the theme of Human Diversity and the Challenges of Cultural Exchange. His incredulous descriptions of the people of Maldonado’s interest in his compass, map, and matches, for example, assume the technological (and therefore intellectual) “superiority” of Europeans. Darwin’s treatment of the slave trade and enslavers also demonstrates a colonial mindset. Although Darwin acknowledges the inhumanity of the slave trade, he nevertheless asserts that “in humanity and good feeling [the planter] was superior to the common run of men.” Presumably, Darwin is here referring to the planter’s interactions with other Europeans, but this suggests a crucial disconnect for Darwin: Although he is visibly disturbed by the reality of slavery, the cruelty of the white humans behind the slave trade does not factor in his estimations of them as people. Elements of white supremacist (or at least hierarchical) thinking even surface in Darwin’s descriptions of other species. For example, he notes that while the caracara is as physically impressive as an eagle, its nature as a scavenger makes it unfitting of “so high a rank” as birds of prey (58). The implication that certain lifeforms are worthier than others recalls the tangled origins of taxonomy and racial pseudoscience.
Darwin’s descriptions often rely on comparisons to European flora and fauna: He writes that a group of guinea fowl near Fuentes were unapproachable, avoiding the scientists “like partridges on a rainy day in September.” His lengthy discussion of the parasitic nesting habits of the cowbird and the cuckoo is another example of this comparison between the “old” world and the “new.” These comparisons hint at Darwin’s future arguments about the origin of species and the Adaptation of Species to Their Environment. He writes that “the close agreement in structure and habits, in representative species” of animals in different parts of the world “always strikes one as interesting.” Within 15 years, Darwin would be expanding on these “interesting” ideas in On the Origin of Species.
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