With an Introduction by
David Amigoni.
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.