Darwin and the Voyage of the Beagle

Twice driven back by south-westerly gales, the Beagle finally left her anchorage in Barn Pool, under Mount Edgcumbe on the west side of Plymouth Sound, on the morning of 27 December 1831. Her captain, Robert FitzRoy, was 26; his orders were to finish surveying the coasts of Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego, Chile and Peru, and to carry a chain of time measurements round the world. Darwin was seasick almost from the start and suffered at sea for the whole voyage.

Location precision: The anchorage at Barn Pool lies just below Mount Edgcumbe House, which the pin marks.

Visitor guidance: Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, above Barn Pool, is reached by the Cremyll foot ferry from Plymouth.

On 16 January 1832 the Beagle anchored at Porto Praya on St Jago (Santiago), and Darwin stepped onto his first tropical shore, "fresh from sea" and walking under coconut palms. The bare lava plains looked desolate, but the geology thrilled him. In the harbour cliffs of Quail Island he traced a horizontal white band of shells about 45 feet above the water, capped by basalt — proof that the land had risen. It was his first real geological discovery on the voyage.

Location precision: Darwin worked around the harbour and on Quail Island; the pin marks Praia.

In Rio de Janeiro, from April to July 1832, Darwin lodged with the artist Augustus Earle in a cottage on Botafogo Bay, below the Corcovado. "It was impossible to wish for anything more delightful": he spent his days in the forest collecting insects, land flatworms and spiders, and rode inland to the coffee estates. He also saw slavery up close in Brazil, and the cruelty he witnessed stayed with him; the Journal ends with a furious attack on the slave system.

Location precision: The cottage's exact site is unknown; the pin marks Botafogo Bay.

Visitor guidance: Botafogo Bay sits between the city centre and Sugarloaf Mountain; the Corcovado rises behind it.

On 22 September 1832, cruising Bahía Blanca with FitzRoy, Darwin stopped at Punta Alta, a low point of gravel and mud — "a perfect catacomb for monsters of extinct races." Over the following weeks he dug out parts of three Megatherium heads, a nearly complete skeleton of an animal as large as a rhinoceros, armour plates and a horse's tooth. When the fossils reached England they made his name among scientists before he was home, and the riddle of why such giants had vanished stayed with him.

Location precision: The fossil cliffs lay on the shore near today's town of Punta Alta; the pin marks the town.

The Beagle carried three Fuegians whom FitzRoy had taken to England on a previous voyage, among them a young man called Jemmy Button. In January 1833 boats brought them through the Beagle Channel to Ponsonby Sound, and Jemmy guided them to "a quiet pretty cove named Woollya", his home district. The crew built wigwams and planted gardens for the Fuegians and a missionary. A year later the Beagle returned to find Jemmy living as a Yaghan again, married and, he said, with no wish at all to go back to England.

Location precision: The pin marks Wulaia Bay on Navarino Island, identified with Darwin's Woollya.

On 20 February 1835 Darwin was resting in a wood near Valdivia when the ground began to rock: "the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid." Two weeks later, sailing north, the Beagle reached Concepción and its port Talcahuano. Not a house was standing; a great wave had swept away the ruins of the port, and the shore was strewn with timber and furniture. The whole coast had been lifted, and the nearby island of Santa María by nearly three times as much — the kind of slow rising of land Darwin had read about, seen happening.

Location precision: The destruction spread over the city and its port; the pin marks central Concepción.

On 17 September 1835 Darwin landed on Chatham Island (San Cristóbal) in the Galápagos: black lava, leafless scrub and the smell of a stove. Walking among the craters he met two giant tortoises, one eating a cactus, "like some antediluvian animals". Over five weeks he noticed that the mockingbirds differed from island to island, and the vice-governor claimed he could tell which island any tortoise came from. Darwin only grasped the importance of this after he was home, when his collections forced the question of where species come from.

Location precision: FitzRoy anchored near today's Puerto Baquerizo Moreno; the pin marks Cerro Tijeretas, where a statue of Darwin stands.

Visitor guidance: A short trail from Puerto Baquerizo Moreno climbs Cerro Tijeretas; the Galápagos National Park sets rules for all visits.

Crossing the Pacific by way of Tahiti and New Zealand, the Beagle sighted Australia on 12 January 1836. The coast reminded Darwin of Patagonia, but he was soon full of admiration for the bustling young city of Sydney. Sailing on across the Indian Ocean, the ship reached the Cape of Good Hope in June, and around 15 June he and FitzRoy called on the astronomer Sir John Herschel — for Darwin, "the most memorable event" in a long time. Herschel had recently written of the "mystery of mysteries": how extinct species are replaced by new ones.

Location precision: The voyage touched Sydney and Cape Town; the pin marks Sydney, where the Beagle anchored in January 1836.

After a last call at Bahia and a second at Cape Verde, a stormy crossing brought the Beagle to Falmouth on 2 October 1836. Darwin, who had "lived on board the good little vessel nearly five years", left the ship that night and took the Royal Mail coach from Fish Strand Hill for the two-day journey home to Shrewsbury. Within months his specimens were being described by the country's leading experts, and the questions they raised would occupy him for the rest of his life.

Visitor guidance: A plaque on Fish Strand Hill in Falmouth marks the spot where Darwin caught the mail coach home.