Living quietly on the ship and eating good food has been good for him. He longs for home. Peru is in a miserable state.
At sea 25 days from Galapagos to Tahiti, where they stayed ten days. It was delightful. Then three weeks to New Zealand, where they will be for ten days.
Convinced of high merit of missionaries.
Dislikes Augustus Earle’s book.
CD’s impressions of Sydney and of FitzRoy’s character and temperament.
All prefer Hobart Town and its society to Sydney. CD’s view on emigration to colonies. All on board are homesick.
Keeling Islands, his first coral lagoons; he has been occupied with subject of coral formation for six months.
Very busy at sea rewriting old geological notes. Has difficulties with writing.
FitzRoy has proposed joint account of the journey, combining CD’s journal with his own.
Looks forward with anxiety to Henslow’s reaction to the geological notes.
Will call on Sir J. Herschel, then take short trip in the African desert.
Horrified at the publication of "the little book of extracts" from his letters to Henslow ["Letters to Professor Henslow" (1835), Collected papers 1: 3–16].
In five days of geologising on St Helena, he found that the shells on high land had been mistakenly identified as seashells. They are land shells, but of species no longer living.
Can think of nothing but the return to England and his family.
Beagle is again in Brazil because of need to check on "singular disagreements in the Longitudes".
Pleased by Sedgwick’s praise.
Happily home, he sends thanks to his "first Lord of the Admiralty". Will visit Maer in two or three weeks.
CD describes his happy home-coming. Finds his family and Shrewsbury unchanged.
Last four days have been spent calling on naturalists. Geologists have been kind, but zoologists seem to think a number of undescribed creatures a nuisance.
Will send his belongings to Cambridge, but eventually his quarters must be London.
FitzRoy is to be married.
His fossil bones are unpacked and some are great treasures. He has some geology to do: R. I. Murchison has lent him a map and asked him to look at a part of the country he has been describing.
Their only protection against having Harriet Martineau as sister-in-law is that she works Erasmus too hard.
Dinner at the Hensleigh Wedgwoods’. They have agreed to go over his journal. Henry Holland thinks it not worth publishing alone because it goes over FitzRoy’s ground.
His impressions of Harriet Martineau: "She is overwhelmed with her own projects, her own thoughts and own abilities."
Declines invitation to dine at Downing College because of influenza.
Has just given a paper [on "Sand tubes"] at Cambridge Philosophical Society and exhibited some specimens. It went well, with Whewell and Sedgwick taking an active part.
Herschel thinks 6000–odd years since the creation not nearly long enough to explain the separations from a single stock.
Sends a number of questions (to put to his father), mainly concerned with transmission of diseases, between Europeans and natives, "people packed together", etc.
Is investigating how to get Government support [for Zoology].
Sends RO a box of fossils from William Darwin Fox, from the Isle of Wight.
Questions on breeding and habits.
Declines Ray Club dinner; too busy with Zoology.
Thanks JSH for presenting his work to Cambridge Philosophical Society.
Asks him to get an answer from W. H. Miller on specimen of crystallised mineral.
FitzRoy is hard at work on his book [Narrative, vol. 2].
CD’s health is improved.
Describes his visit to zoo.
Gives news of E. A. Darwin and Harriet Martineau.