This Thing Of Darkness (46 page)

‘Was a more horrid deed ever perpetrated? They are the most grotesque race. I feel quite a disgust at the very sound of the voices of these miserable savages!’

‘Forgive me, Philos, but I think you are wrong to distinguish them as a race. I think there is more variance between any two individuals than between the different races. Could three more distinct individuals exist than Jemmy, York and Fuegia? Yet are any of them so very different from Englishmen you have met?’

‘Well, it is true that I could scarcely have believed how wide was the difference between a savage and a civilized man. It is more strikingly marked than between a wild animal and a domesticated pet! But is that not what you have done with your three savages - tamed them, like dogs? They do not yet appear to boast of human reason or of the arts consequent to that reason. Take these very ducks, here. What was it York Minster said, when Bynoe shot them? “Oh, Mr Bynoe, now much rain, much snow, blow much.” It appears the steamer duck is some sort of sacred animal to him! He considers the elements themselves to be avenging angels! Only in a race so little advanced could the elements become personified so. It is absurd.’

‘If you will suffer me to object, Philos, you say they are backward, and do not share all our qualities, but what of their own qualities? What of their astonishing gift for mimicry? They can instantly memorize and repeat several lines of an alien tongue!’

‘Come now, that is merely a consequence of the more practised habits of perception, and the keener senses, common to all men in a savage state.’

‘What of their unique powers of eyesight?’

‘They live upon the sea! It is well known that sailors, from long practice, can make out a distant object better than a landsman.’

‘What of their powers of intuition?’

‘Such powers are more strongly marked in women, as well as being characteristic of the lower races. They are powers characteristic of a past and lower state of civilization. Does not man achieve a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than a woman can attain? There is your proof.’

‘You continue to speak of the “lower races”. There are no such things. Genesis one, twenty-six: “And God said let us make man in our image.” There is nothing in the scriptures about lower men. Genesis nine, nineteen: By the three sons of Noah “was the whole earth over-spread”. Esau begat the copper-coloured race, with the daughter of Ishmael. No doubt the climate, and their diet, and their habit of living have all helped to adapt them, but they are men, Philos, just as you and I.’
Please, my friend, it feels as if I am losing you. Please turn back before it is too late, for this way blasphemy lies.

‘My dear FitzRoy, the races may have been
conceived
in equality, but who would deny that they are now utterly distinct and utterly unequal? The emotional and intellectual faculties of the Fuegian Indian have been diminished. Their language scarcely deserves to be called articulate - it sounds like a man clearing his throat. Even their gestures are unintelligible! If, as you say, they have been rendered hideous by cold, want of food and lack of civilization, then have they not
become
a lower race? What skills they have may now be compared to the instinct of animals, for they do not seem to be improved by experience. Their canoes, for instance, have not changed at all since Byron wrote his book a hundred years ago.’

‘The fact that their society has degenerated does not make them a lesser race. They are innocent, that is all - innocent of so much. What of the English, when the Romans left our shores? Were we then a “lesser race”? Progress is a social ideal, not a measure of physical development. History is not by definition a process of improvement.’

‘You think not? I tell you, FitzRoy, at some future period, not very distant I imagine, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. It is already happening. Wherever the European has trod, death pursues the Aboriginal. Varieties of man act upon each other as do species of animal. The strong extirpate the weak. There is nothing we can do about it.’

‘Yes, there is. I have tried in my small way to do something about it. I do not compete with the Fuegians. I support and encourage them because I am a Christian and such is God’s command.’

‘But not all men are as upright, as dedicated to God’s truth as you are, my dear friend. Already the Europeans are reaching further south, beyond Punta Alta. The Fuegians cannot survive, just as the Aborigines of Australia cannot survive, or any other of the degraded races of blacks. And when the higher apes, the anthropomorphous apes, are exterminated in turn, then the divide between man and the animal kingdom will be even greater, and civilized man will reign supreme.’

‘What do you mean, “the divide between man and the animal kingdom will be even greater”? How can it become greater, or lesser?’

‘I mean the gap between the Caucasian and the lower apes — such as the baboon - is greater than the gap between, say, the Negro and the gorilla.’

‘What are you saying? I cannot believe you are saying this!’

‘Come, FitzRoy. Look at the orang-utan - its affection, its passion, its rage, its sulkiness, its despair. Then look at the savage — naked, artless, roasting its parent. Your Fuegians remind me of nothing so much as an orang-utan taking tea at the zoological gardens. Compare the Fuegian and the orang-utan and
dare
to say that the difference is so great.’

FitzRoy was angry now.

‘Oh, I
dare
to say that, Philos, I
dare
indeed. We humans - notice how I use the word
we
- walk on two legs; the apes — be they “higher” or “lower” - walk on four. We humans feel love and affection, and reason, and shame, and embarrassment, and pride. The apes have only a breeding season, a cycle of sexual receptiveness. We have a complex vocal language. They do not. We are, in the main, hairless. They are covered from head to toe in fur. They are
animals.
You can civilize a human,
as I have proved.
You cannot take an orang-utan to enjoy a civilized conversation with His Majesty the King of England.’

‘My dear FitzRoy, I can see that I have angered you. I do not set up for one second to deny that man is created by God to reign over the animals, that the two are utterly separate, that there can be no transmutation between one and the other. As I told you, I have no truck with Lamarck. I meant only that the Fuegians have fallen so far as to
adopt
some of the ways of the animal kingdom. They seem to exist, for instance, in a state of equality like a herd of cattle; a way of living that can only retard civilization and prevent improvement. And man here is in a lower state of improvement than in any other part of the world.’

FitzRoy did not know whether to make concessions to Darwin’s conciliatory tone or go on the attack; but he was saved from the need to decide by a knock at the door.

It was Sulivan. ‘I’m afraid it begins to look pretty filthy to westward, sir. The barometer is falling. I think you had better come on deck.’

FitzRoy rose. ‘Well, Philos. It seems you spoke too soon about the famous Horn.’

 

What had begun as an ominous line of inky clouds on the western horizon was to become a twenty-four-day nightmare for the crew of the
Beagle,
as gale after gale pinned them just to the west of Cape Horn. Pummelling winds and relentless seas battered them day and night, until everyone and everything in the ship was drenched. At the end of each watch the exhausted men, with no dry clothes to change into, turned in ‘full standing’: bones aching, they retreated to their soaking hammocks still wrapped in their sopping oilskins, and fell asleep in an instant.

The temperature plummeted. Even though it was supposedly the middle of summer, the watch on deck were whipped by sharp snowflakes and stung by driving hail. It was impossible to stand upright below decks, and almost as difficult on deck, where the planking had become a slippery sheet of ice. Masts, spars, rigging, everything was sheathed in a thick icy coat, which had to be continually chipped off at severe risk to life and limb. Even the officers of the watch froze into ghastly attitudes, their oilskins masked with ice, lashed to the wheel under a crazily swinging oil lamp. Great green rollers powered ceaselessly aboard, a good foot of water coursing freely through the gunports, but the momentary relief such waves afforded, being warmer than the air, was soon lost as further layers of ice crusted quickly on the men’s clothes.

In the poop cabin behind the wheel, Darwin lay in a permanent pool of vomit, his specimens ruined, his dried-flower collection a sodden mess. Christmas came and went, and New Year too, but nobody noticed. There was no sign of a let-up in the mountainous breaking seas. Finally, on 13 January, through sheets of spray that obscured the horizon, they caught sight of the stark black tower of York Minster, their destination, looming amid driving clouds. They had come just a hundred miles in three and a half weeks.

‘There she is, sir - jolly old York Minster!’ yelled Bennet cheerily over the howling wind.

‘Excellent!’ FitzRoy was in a good mood. He had just been to inspect the chronometers with Stebbing. Oilskin thrown off, his head wrapped in a towel to prevent dripping, he had dried the glass top of each machine and scattered flour upon it. Then, through a magnifying glass, he had checked the grains for signs of vibration or slippage from the horizontal. Nothing. Every chronometer and every gimbal was in perfect working order.

‘Biblical weather, ain’t it, sir?’ roared Sulivan.

‘Now we know how Noah felt,’ added Bennet. ‘Do you think we shall have the full forty days and forty nights?’

‘“ion the morning thou shalt say, would God it were even. And at even thou shalt say, would God it were morning!”’ Sulivan laughed out loud. FitzRoy gave silent thanks that the men of the
Beagle
were so indefatigable, so good-natured, whatever the obstacles placed in their way.

An albatross wheeled about the ship, gliding effortlessly against the buffeting wind. On each pass it would sweep gracefully down into the wave-troughs, breaking the occasional crest with an exploratory wingtip, before soaring up the face of the next rising arch, never once needing to flap its wings.

‘That bird. How long has it been following us?’ FitzRoy asked, disappearing up to his thighs in a surge of green seawater.

‘As long as we’ve been on watch, sir.’

‘And has it been flying clockwise about the ship throughout?’

‘Yes sir. Leastways, I think they always do fly clockwise, sir.’

‘I wonder — is that because of the magnetism of the earth? If one were to release an albatross in the northern hemisphere, would it fly anticlockwise?’

‘Shall we try to catch it, sir?’

‘No, no. I do not wish to lose an officer to the cause of natural philosophy, however noble the enquiry. But it leads one to ponder the incredible migrations of birds, their astonishing sense of direction — might it be magnetic, do you think?’

Another peak furled across the deck, water blasting violently through the gunports. FitzRoy yelled into Sulivan’s ear, ‘Mr Sulivan, would you ask Mr May to have the gunports secured? Let us try to reduce the amount of water on deck. It is like trying to stand in a sluice.’

‘Pardon me, sir, but do you think that is a good idea? The weather is worsening. If any really big waves get up, and the deck becomes flooded, fixed gunports could trap the water in the ship, sir.’

He indicated the line of cliffs off to the north-east, all of two hundred feet in height, where a vast battering surf was sending spray scattering over the cliff-tops.

‘Let us put our faith in the old girl - she is more buoyant than she used to be,’ insisted FitzRoy.

‘Very well, sir.’ And Sulivan rushed off in the gap between waves to locate the carpenter. He found May in the galley, desperately trying to warm himself against the scalding iron of Mr Frazer’s patent closed stove.

‘Mr May? Captain says you’re to secure all the gunports.’

May sighed. Although hardly dry, he had at least steamed a little water out of his saturated clothing over the preceding two hours. Now he was to go back on deck, and give himself another soaking. ‘Aye aye sir.’

‘And Mr May?’

‘Sir?’

Sulivan hesitated. He would never countenance disobeying any superior officer, but this was not exactly disobedience.

‘Keep your handspike about you in case they need to be opened in a hurry.’

‘Sir.’

On the way back up to the maindeck, Sulivan put his head round the door of FitzRoy’s cabin to check on Edward Hellyer. It was the young clerk’s first real storm.

‘You all right, young man?’

‘Yes sir, thank you, sir.’ Hellyer, pale and scared, did not look at all convinced.

Sulivan glanced over the boy’s shoulder at the ship’s log. ‘Hard at hand, I see,’ he said approvingly, and scanned the boy’s work. ‘Well done, Mr Hellyer. That’s first-rate. When we look back and argue about this here blow, your log is the place we’ll come for all our answers. You’re doing a splendid job.’ He clapped Hellyer on the back and the lad seemed to brighten up, for the moment at least.

By the time half an hour had elapsed, it was clear that an already desperate situation was getting worse. FitzRoy’s concern was for the masts, which for all their girth were straining like saplings. ‘We must take the topgallant sails off her. She is careening to her bearings.’

Bos’n Sorrell resorted to the speaking-trumpet: ‘Very well, my lads, very well indeed! Topgallants clewed up and furled!’ In an instant the icy rigging was alive with dark shapes, carrying out the order with well-drilled precision.

‘I fear, sir, we cannot carry the topsails much longer,’ said Sulivan. He knew that FitzRoy liked to keep a main topsail and five reefs as a minimum, even in the worst weather, to ensure steerage way. But such a rig would be impossible to maintain any further: the wind was screaming through the rigging now, and increasingly mountainous seas were rising ominously beneath the ship. The boundary between sky and sea was becoming blurred: seething white froth filled the air, and breakers were hurling themselves continuously across the deck. FitzRoy gave orders to take her down to storm trysails, close-reefed. He was now barely in charge of the
Beagle
: the storm had all but wrested control of her.