gales, Her Majesty's ship Beagle, a ten-gun
brig, under the command of Captain Fitz Roy, R. N.,
sailed from Devonport on the 27th of December, 1831. The
object of the expedition was to complete the survey of
Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, commenced under Captain King
in 1826 to 1830, -- to survey the shores of Chile, Peru, and
of some islands in the Pacific -- and to carry a chain of
chronometrical measurements round the World. On the 6th
of January we reached Teneriffe, but were prevented landing,
by fears of our bringing the cholera: the next morning
we saw the sun rise behind the rugged outline of the Grand
Canary island, and suddenly illuminate the Peak of Teneriffe,
whilst the lower parts were veiled in fleecy clouds. This
was the first of many delightful days never to be forgotten.
On the 16th of January, 1832, we anchored at Porto Praya,
in St. Jago, the chief island of the Cape de Verd archipelago.

The neighbourhood of Porto Praya, viewed from the sea,
wears a desolate aspect. The volcanic fires of a past age,
and the scorching heat of a tropical sun, have in most places
rendered the soil unfit for vegetation. The country rises in
successive steps of table-land, interspersed with some truncate
conical hills, and the horizon is bounded by an irregular
chain of more lofty mountains. The scene, as beheld through
the hazy atmosphere of this climate, is one of great interest;
if, indeed, a person, fresh from sea, and who has just
walked, for the first time, in a grove of cocoa-nut trees, can
be a judge of anything but his own happiness. The island
would generally be considered as very uninteresting, but to
anyone accustomed only to an English landscape, the novel