Charles Darwins travels around the world as an independent naturalist on HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836 impressed upon him a sense of the natural worlds beauty and 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 and interiors of South America to South Sea Islands, Darwins descriptive powers are constantly challenged, but never once overcome. In addition, The Voyage of the Beagle displays Darwins powerful, speculative mind at work, posing searching questions about the complex relation between the Earths structure, animal forms, anthropology and the origins of life itself.