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To William Darwin Fox [9–12 August] 1835

Lima
July,1 1835

My dear Fox,

I have lately received two of your letters, one dated June2 & the other November 1834. (—They reached me however in an inverted order;—) I was very glad to receive a history of this the most important year in your life. Previously I had only heard the plain fact, that you were married.— You are a true Christian & return good for evil.—to send two such letters to so bad a Correspondent, as I have been. God bless you for writing so kindly & affectionately; if it is a pleasure to have friends in England, it is doubly so, to think & know that one is not forgotten, because absent.—

This voyage is terribly long.— I do so earnestly desire to return, yet I dare hardly look forward to the future, for I do not know what will become of me.— Your situation is above envy; I do not venture even to frame such happy visions.— To a person fit to take the office, the life of a Clergyman is a type of all that is respectable & happy: & if he is a Naturalist & has the “Diamond Beetle”, ave Maria; I do not know what to say.— You tempt me by talking of your fireside, whereas it is a sort of scene I never ought to think about—I saw the other day a vessel sail for England, it was quite dangerous to know, how easily I might turn deserter. As for an English lady, I have almost forgotten what she is.—something very angelic & good. As for the women in these countries they wear Caps & petticoats & a very few have pretty faces & then all is said.—

But if we are not wrecked on some unlucky reef, I will sit by that same fireside in Vale Cottage & tell some of the wonderful stories, which you seem to anticipate & I presume are not very ready to believe. Gracias a dios, the prospect of such times is rather shorter than formerly.—

From this most wretched “city of the Kings” we sail in a fortnight, from thence to Guyaquil — Galapagos — Marquesas — Society Isd., &c &c.—4 I look forward to the Galapagos, with more interest than any other part of the voyage.— They abound with active Volcanoes & I should hope contain Tertiary strata.— I am glad to hear you have some thoughts of beginning geology.— I hope you will, there is so much larger a field for thought, than in the other branches of Nat: History.— I am become a zealous disciple of Mr Lyells views, as known in his admirable book.— Geologizing in S. America, I am tempted to carry parts to a greater extent, even than he does. Geology is a capital science to begin, as it requires nothing but a little reading, thinking & hammering.— I have a considerable body of notes together; but it is a constant subject of perplexity to me, whether they are of sufficient value, for all the time I have spent about them, or whether animals would not have been of more certain value.—

I have lately had a long ride from Valparaiso to Copiapò; in the Northern half the country is frightfully desert, & the sole source of interest was in the Geology. The scarcity of fossil shells is very inconvenient, as it will render any comparison of the formations with those of Europe nearly impossible. The Andes, at the period when Ammonites lived, (which corresponds to the secondary rocks) must have been chain of Volcanic Islands, from which copious streams of lava were poured forth & subsequently covered with Conglomerates. Such beds form the Cordilleras of Chili.—

For the last months I have been shamefully negligent of all branches of Zoology; I hope to make up a little in the Pacifick; but all our future visits will indeed be flying ones.— The Captain talks about arriving in England September year. I doubt the possibility; but Heaven grant it may not be much after.— Will you write to me once again, soon after receiving this & direct to the C. of Good Hope, & in answer to it you will see me in Person; Till that joyful day arrives, I must wish you a long Farewell. I shall indeed be glad once again to see you & tell you how grateful I feel for your steady friendship.—God bless you. My very dear Fox.

Believe me, | Yours affectionately | Chas. Darwin—

As it is today, publishing in 1836 was a tricky prospect.

To Caroline Darwin 29 April 1836

Port Lewis, Mauritius.
April 29th. 1836.

My dear Caroline,

We arrived here this morning; as a Ship sails for England tomorrow, I will not let escape the opportunity of writing. But as I am both tired & stupid, my letter will be equally dull. I wrote from Sydney & Hobart town, after leaving the latter place, we proceeded to King Georges Sound. I did not feel much affection for any part of Australia; & certainly, nothing could be better adapted, than our last visit, to put the finishing stroke to such feelings.—

We then proceeded to the Keeling Isds.— These are low lagoon Isds. about 500 miles from the coast of Sumatra.— I am very glad we called there, as it has been our only opportunity of seeing one of those wonderful productions of the Coral polypi.— The subject of Coral formation has for the last half year, been a point of particular interest to me. I hope to be able to put some of the facts in a more simple & connected point of view, than that in which they have hitherto been considered. The idea of a lagoon Island, 30 miles in diameter being based on a submarine crater of equal dimensions,2 has alway appeared to me a monstrous hypothesis.

From the Keeling Id we came direct to this place. All which we have yet seen is very pleasing. The scenery cannot boast of the charms of Tahiti & still less of the grand luxuriance of Brazil; but yet it is a complete & very beautiful picture. But, there is no country which has now any attractions for us, without it is seen right astern, & the more distant & indistinct the better. We are all utterly home sick; I feel sure there is a wide difference between leaving one’s home to reside for five years in some foreign country, & in wandering for the same time. There is nothing, which I so much long for, as to see any spot & any object, which I have seen before & can say I will see again.— Our heads are giddy, with such a constant whirl. The Capt, continues to push along with a slack rein & an armed heel.— thank Heaven not an hour has lately been lost, or will again be lost.

It is probable, if we escape the heavy gales off the Cape, we may reach England 8 weeks after you receive this letter. Our course beyond the Cape & St Helena is not certain; I think it will end in touching at Bahia on the coast of Brazil. With what different sensations I shall now view that splendid scene, from formerly. Then I thought an hour of such existence would have been cheaply purchased with an year of ordinary life, but now one glimpse of my dear home, would be better than the united kingdoms, of all the glorious Tropics. Whilst we are at sea, & the weather is fine, my time passes smoothly, because I am very busy. My occupation consists in rearranging old geological notes: the rearranging generally consists in totally rewriting them. I am just now beginning to discover the difficulty of expressing one’s ideas on paper. As long as it consists solely of description it is pretty easy; but where reasoning comes into play, to make a proper connection, a clearness & a moderate fluency, is to me, as I have said, a difficulty of which I had no idea.—

. . .

The Captain is daily becoming a happier man, he now looks forward with cheerfulness to the work which is before him. He, like myself, is busy all day in writing, but instead of geology, it is the account of the Voyage. I sometimes fear his “Book” will be rather diffuse, but in most other respects it certainly will be good: his style is very simple & excellent. He has proposed to me, to join him in publishing the account, that is, for him to have the disposal & arranging of my journal & to mingle it with his own. Of course I have said I am perfectly willing, if he wants materials; or thinks the chit-chat details of my journal are any ways worth publishing. He has read over the part, I have on board, & likes it.—

I shall be anxious to hear your opinions, for it is a most dangerous task, in these days, to publish accounts of parts of the world, which have so frequently been visited. It is a rare piece of good fortune for me, that of the many errant (in ships) Naturalists, there have been few or rather no geologists. I shall enter the field unopposed.— I assure you I look forward with no little anxiety to the time when Henslow, putting on a grave face, shall decide on the merits of my notes. If he shakes his head in a disapproving manner: I shall then know that I had better at once give up science, for science will have given up me.— For I have worked with every grain of energy I possess.— But what a horridly egotistical letter, I am writing; I am so tired, that nothing short of the pleasant stimulus of vanity & writing about one’s own dear self would have sufficed.— I have the excuse, if I write about my self, Heaven knows I think enough about all of you.—

We shall leave this Isld. in 6 days time; if there is any opportunity, I will write from the C. of Good Hope & that letter possibly may be the last you will receive, before you see me arrive, converted into an ancient, brown-colored Gentleman. The minute the Ship drops her anchor in the mud of old England, I will start for Shrewsbury.— I trust we shall find letters at the Cape; but I have many fears; the date of the last letter I received was 13 months ago: This is a grievous period, to be entirely ignorant, about all, one care’s most for.—It is probable we shall arrive early in September; you must recollect the possibility of my not having received letters for 18 months, so retell me any thing important; if I do not come by the 14th of Septemb. write again to Plymouth post-office. So that when, I start for home—I may travel with a certain mind.

God bless you all. May you be well & happy. Forgive such a letter; I am sure, you would sooner have it, than nothing.— So once again farewell to you all.— give my most affectionate love to my Father & all | My dearest Caroline | Your affectionate brother | Chas. Darwin.

Where is the Ithaca of Homer, home to Odysseus? This has been a point of contention, since today’s Ithaki bears little resemblance to Homer’s description of the island.

Enter Robert Bittlestone. He has signed up as project sponsor for a company that specializes in seismic detection, sonograms and the like, bringing with him Professor John Underhill (Edinburgh, geology) and Professor James Diggle (Cambridge, classics). His work stresses visualization of data — what better tools to discover an island matching Homer’s description!

I can’t really do justice to the breadth of work being done on this — have a look at CNN’s recent report:

Pretty amazing. We published a book on Bittlestone, Underhill and Diggle’s leg-work not long ago: Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer’s Ithaca. Not only is it full of satellite imagery depicting what they argue is the real Ithaca, but their own photos of investigations around the island; ruins, signs of past inhabitants, and attempts to locate the sites of The Odyssey.

You can follow their latest findings at their project web site.