With an Introduction by David Amigoni Charles Darwin's travels around the world as an independent naturalist on HMS Beagle between 1831 & 1836 impressed upon him a sense of the natural world's beauty & sublimity which language could barely capture Words he said were inadequate to convey to those who have not visited the inter-tropical regions the sensation of delight which the mind experiences' Yet in a travel journal which takes the reader from the coasts & interiors of South America to South Sea Islands Darwin's descriptive powers are constantly challenged but never once overcome In addition The Voyage of the Beagle displays Darwin's powerful speculative mind at work posing searching questions about the complex relation between the Earth's structure animal forms anthropology & the origins of life itself