In those days without anesthetics. So he left the medical

school.

After that —and there was a good deal of argument

first — he agreed to study for the ministry. In thought

he might become a country minister. He loved country

life, and had begun collections of beetles and butterflies.

Reluctantly, then, he enrolled as a theological student at

Cambridge. And there he met Professor John Stevens

Henslow, the geologist and botanist.

Almost immediately Henslow and Charles Darwin

became fast friends. They were seen walking together

so often that the students at Cambridge called Darwin

\"the man who walks with Henslow\".

It was during those years4, and under Henslow's

influence, that Darwin began to read the works of the great

10* 147

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naturalists. He read Alexander von Humboldt's

Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of

America and longed to set foot in the new world. He

read Sir John Herschel's Introduction to the Study of

Natural Philosophy and dreamed of adding something

humble but substantiaJ perhaps to what he called a little

4 pompously, \"the noble structure of natural science\".

His opportunity to add to that structure came much

more quickly than he anticipated. In the late summer

of 1831, the HMS Beagle was to make a cruise around

the world for purposes of mapping and scientific

observation. The captain, Robert Fitzroy, wanted a scientist

to go on the expedition — \"a scientific person to examine

the land\".

Professor Henslow recommended Charles Darwin for

the post, and Darwin was filled with excitement. To go to

the equinoctial regions of America as Von Humboldt had

done, to have a chance to examine minerals and wild

life in regions where he had never been before, seemed

to him the opportunity of his life.

But his rather objected. They boy ought to finish his

theological course, he said. He had wasted time enough.

Charles Darwin's uncle, Josiah Wedgwood, who was me

owner of the famous Wedgwood potteries, saw the

youth's point of view. He had his horses harnessed to his

carriage and drove more than thirty miles to see the elder

Darwin. In the end the permission was given, and Charles

Darwin set off for the Beagle.

But now he encountered another difficulty. The captain

of the vessel hesitated to accept him. He doubted, he

said, \"whether a man with such a shaped nose could

possess sufficient energy and determination for the

voyage\". . .

\"How strange!\" Charles Darwin said years later.

\"I became a naturalist ofily because my uncle was willing

to drive thirty miles to see my father, and because the

captain finally decided he did not object to the shape of

my nose\".

His Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-ton brig, sailed out

of Devonport on the twenty-seventh of December, 1831.

She was bound for Patagonia, and thence through the

straits of Tierra del Fuego, and so on around the world.

\"It was the most important event in my life\", Charles

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Darwin wrote years later. The little brig pushed out

across the Atlantic, and soon was encountering rough

seas, so that the young naturalist, lying in his bunk, was

miserable with seasickness. This sickness was to plague

him off and on, whenever the vessel rocked, throughout

the five years of the voyage.

They landed on the South American coast, and Darwin

began his collections immediately. Soon he had mineral,

shells, and plants arranged systematically in the small

room behind the mast where he also kept his book and