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Started reading
May 11, 2019
but to any one accustomed only to an English landscape, the novel prospect of an utterly sterile land possesses a grandeur which more vegetation might spoil.
Both are of a tame and stupid disposition, and are so unaccustomed to visitors, that I could have killed any number of them with my geological hammer.
The often-repeated description of the first colonists of the coral islets in the South Sea, is not, probably, quite correct: I fear it destroys the poetry of the story to find, that these little vile insects should thus take possession before the cocoa-nut tree and other noble plants have appeared.
This spot is notorious from having been, for a long time, the residence of some runaway slaves, who, by cultivating a little ground near the top, contrived to eke out a subsistence. At length they were discovered, and a party of soldiers being sent, the whole were seized with the exception of one old woman, who sooner than again be led into slavery, dashed herself to pieces from the summit of the mountain. In a Roman matron this would have been called the noble love of freedom: in a poor negress it is mere brutal obstinacy.
In England any person fond of natural history enjoys in his walks a great advantage, by always having something to attract his attention; but in these fertile climates, teeming with life, the attractions are so numerous, that he is scarcely able to walk at all.
few countries have undergone more remarkable changes, since the year 1535, when the first colonist of La Plata landed with seventy-two horses.
How different would have been the aspect of this river, if English colonists had by good fortune first sailed up the Plata! What noble towns would now have occupied its shores!
Darwin's English colonialism is showing
A naked man, on a naked horse, is a fine spectacle; I had no idea how well the two animals suited each other.
The captain at last said, he had one question to ask me, which he should be very much obliged if I would answer with all truth. I trembled to think how deeply scientific it would be: it was, ‘Whether the ladies of Buenos Ayres were not the handsomest in the world.’ I replied, ‘Charmingly so.’ He added, ‘I have one other question. Do ladies in any other part of the world wear such large combs?’ I solemnly assured him they did not. They were absolutely delighted. The captain exclaimed, ‘Look there! a man who has seen half the world says it is the case; we always thought so, but now we know it.’
The most important result of this discovery, is the confirmation of the law that existing animals have a close relation in form with extinct species.
Within a very few years after these islands shall have become regularly settled, in all probability this fox will be classed with the dodo, as an animal which has perished from the face of the earth.
I can only compare these great aquatic forests of the southern hemisphere with the terrestrial ones in the intertropical regions. Yet if the latter should be destroyed in any country, I do not believe nearly so many species of animals would perish, as, under similar circumstances, would happen with the kelp.
A fox, of a kind said to be peculiar to the island, and very rare in it, and which is an undescribed species, was sitting on the rocks. He was so intently absorbed in watching their manoeuvres, that I was able, by quietly walking up behind, to knock him on the head with my geological hammer.
A bad earthquake at once destroys the oldest associations: the world, the very emblem of all that is solid, has moved beneath our feet like a crust over a fluid; one second of time has conveyed to the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would never have created.
