Savage (12 page)

FitzRoy must have been particularly cheered by the final paragraph of Wilson's letter, in which the
Beagle
's commander was informed that ‘A subscription has been set in foot by Gentlemen who are extremely desirous that this opportunity of extending the benefits of civilization should not be lost…'

Wilson approached the Church Missionary Society for help, but once again found it unable to meet his request. Despite the offer of funds from the subscription, the Society could not afford the expense of a missionary. Besides, there was a lack of trained men willing to go to Tierra del Fuego. Feelers were put out and, with the date of embarkation approaching, a man was found: Richard Matthews, a mechanic missionary, still in his late teens. Despite his age, he had a good pedigree: his brother was a successful missionary at Kaitaia in New Zealand so he would have an idea of the severity of the proselytising life. Still, the idea of a single man cut adrift in a ‘savage' landscape raised many early doubts. Was it really possible that Matthews would cope? FitzRoy thought him ‘rather too young, and less experienced than might have been wished…' but, he added, ‘his character and conduct had been such as to give very fair grounds for anticipating that he would, at least, sincerely endeavour to do his utmost in a situation so difficult and trying as that for which he volunteered'.

While Matthews prepared mentally, physically and intellectually for the job in front of him, William Wilson, Joseph Wigram and Dandeson Coates, of the Church Missionary Society, moved ahead with the subscription fund. Their aim was to provide the Fuegians and the missionary with the tools of both survival and advancement. Coates persuaded the CMS to donate £10 worth of books. The people of Walthamstow, and others who had befriended Jemmy, Fuegia and York, added a large quantity of European clothing, tools, ironmongery and earthenware. Many of them evidently had no clue about the conditions and adverse circumstances of the mission, for as well as the practical implements of survival they sent a multitude of fashionable London luxuries: toilette services, cut-glass decanters and glasses, soup tureens, butter bolts, tea trays, fine white linen, beaver hats, silk handkerchiefs, a mahogany dressing-case and chamber-pots.

On the eve of the missionary's departure for Plymouth, Dandeson Coates wrote Matthews a long letter of ‘suggestions and counsel'. In it he told his acolyte that he was to follow FitzRoy's every instruction and to look to him for directions. Matthews's aims were to ‘promote the glory of God and the good of your fellow creatures'. To speed this he was to endeavour to do them all the good in his power, to gain their confidence and to be ‘strong in the grace which is in Jesus Christ'.

Matthews's first object, Coates informed him, was to get to know the Fuegian languages; he should use the voyage to talk with the three, note down all the new words he heard, work out which was the most commonly used language and concentrate on it. He was to use the Bible as the basis of all his lessons, but should ‘bear in mind that it is the temporal advantages which you may be capable of communicating to them that they will be most easily and immediately sensible of. Among these may be reckoned the acquisition of better dwellings, and better and more plentiful food and clothing…' For this reason he was to make husbandry and agriculture a priority. He should take it upon himself to instruct the Fuegians in the cultivation of ‘potato, cabbage and other vegetables; to rear pigs, poultry, etc and to construct a commodious habitation'.

Example was to be Matthews's watchword, Coates concluded. By fencing off a piece of land for himself, with a clean, orderly house, a well-stocked garden and a flourishing supply of livestock, the natives would learn the advantages of changing their traditional ways.

*   *   *

On the evening of 13 November the Fuegians, accompanied by their teacher Mr Jenkins and Richard Matthews, arrived in Plymouth from London by the steam vessel
Shannon.
Thirteen months earlier they had been frightened out of their wits by a passing steamer in Falmouth harbour, now they were travelling on one – 500 tons burthen, driven by powerful 160 horsepower engines. They had brought with them the ‘outfit' of necessaries and not so necessaries raised by their supporters. An already overcrowded
Beagle
looked set to burst at the seams, but as the items were loaded the crew's irritation at having to find even more space turned to mirth. ‘In the small hold of the
Beagle,
it was not easy to find places for the stowage of so many extra stores,' noted FitzRoy. ‘When dividing the contents of large chests, in order to pack them differently, some very fair jokes were enjoyed by the seamen, at the expense of those who had ordered complete sets of crockery-ware, without desiring that any selection of articles should be made.'

As he waded through it all, he could not have failed to marvel at the irony of a letter brought by Matthews from Dandeson Coates:

My dear Sir …

We have provided Matthews with all such articles as appear to be necessary for him, and which could most advantageously be supplied from this country. These had all been completed before I learned from Mr Wilson that you are short of stowage. I hope, however, they will not be found to amount to a quantity to occasion you inconvenience; and I think you will be of opinion that no part of his outfit could, with propriety, be disposed with, in case Matthews becomes a permanent resident in Tierra del Fuego …

That evening FitzRoy brought the Fuegians onto the
Beagle
for introductions to the crew, some of whom were familiar, others not. Next day Robert MacCormick noted in his diary, ‘Monday Nov 14th. Saw Fuegia Basket at Weakley's Hotel.' This was a smart inn in Devonport's Fore Street, run by Robert Weakley, and the reference suggests that the Fuegians, like many of the officers, were staying ashore until the ship was ready to sail.

Departure must have seemed imminent. All was set fair – the arrival of the Fuegians and the missionary, stowage of their goods, the presence of Darwin, the muster of the crew – except the weather. Over the next few weeks adverse winds and storms conspired to peg the ship in harbour. As frustration mounted, Darwin commented, ‘These two months at Plymouth were the most miserable that I ever spent.'

The
Beagle
moved out from its dock on 23 November to the holding point at Barnet Pool. All eyes were on the skies. A proposed departure date of 5 December came and went in the face of a pummelling gale. Five days later the crew unfurled the sails and the
Beagle
moved out. Within twenty-four hours she was back in port, defeated once again by the furious wind.

Days passed, and superstitious members of the crew believed that their stay was being prolonged by somebody on shore keeping a black cat under a tub. On 21 December they set sail again, only to strike a rock near Drake's Island where they were lodged for half an hour while the crew ran from side to side of the ship to break it free. Just off Cornwall's Lizard Point they were forced back to Plymouth once again.

Several lively parties on board, and a number of balls and dinners on shore, ameliorated the frustration of the officers, but all were getting restless. On Christmas Day the crew went on the rampage. Darwin described the day in his diary, with regret, as ‘one of great importance to the men: the whole of it has been given up to revelry, at present there is not a sober man in the ship: King is obliged to perform duty of sentry, the last sentinel came staggering below declaring he would no longer stand on duty, whereupon he is now in irons getting sober as fast as he can…'

Whether Jemmy, Fuegia and York were on the ship while this was all going on is unknown. FitzRoy had no part in the revelries and, from the sound of it, had abandoned the ship for the day. It is probable that, knowing his men's love of alcohol, he had removed the Fuegians and the missionary to the safety of the shore.

The greatest annoyance of the celebrations was that the following day was glorious, blue skies, gentle breeze, a placid sea and, unfortunately, a missing crew. Darwin's displeasure spilled onto the next page of his diary:

The ship has been all day in a state of anarchy. One day's holiday has caused all this mischief; such a scene proves how absolutely necessary strict discipline is amongst such thoughtless beings as Sailors. Several have paid the penalty for insolence, by sitting for eight or nine hours in heavy chains. Whilst in this state, their conduct was like children, abusing everybody and thing but themselves and the next moment nearly crying …

FitzRoy restored discipline by ordering the flogging of several ringleaders when they were at sea. On 27 December the weather was perfect: a fresh easterly wind, a lightly rippled sea and a high barometer. By noon the
Beagle
was outside the breakwater and on its way. In Lieutenant Sulivan's opinion, never had a vessel left England better equipped for her special service, but as the Fuegians looked back on Mount Edgecumbe as England disappeared from view, they were doubtless reflecting on the strange fourteen months they had spent there. To be sure they were also looking forward to rejoining their own people.

PART THREE

Twenty Dwarf Hairs

Chapter 10

The voyage of the
Beagle
became known as one of the great seafaring journeys, imbued with the romance of adventure and discovery, but at the outset, with a crew exhausted from overwork and too much drink, the likely results seemed less than promising. Nevertheless, FitzRoy set his course for the slow but eventful trip to Cape Horn.

They called at Tenerife, Madeira, the Cape Verde Islands, Porto Noronha, Bahia, Rio, Buenos Aires and Monte Video. At Tenerife the ship was barred entry for refusing quarantine conditions; at St Paul's Rocks, a boat expedition was surrounded by sharks. At Buenos Aires a harbour guardship fired a blank shell at the
Beagle
in an attempt to enforce quarantine regulations and an international incident was barely averted. In Monte Video the crew marched the streets with guns and cutlasses drawn, helping police to suppress a mutiny among local soldiers. At Maldonado, York Minster experienced what might have been the defining moment of his time away from Tierra del Fuego – an encounter with an ostrich. Darwin noted in his
Journal of Researches
that nothing seemed to have astonished the Fuegian more than the sight of the bird: ‘Breathless with astonishment he came running to Mr Bynoe, with whom he was out walking – “Oh, Mr Bynoe, oh, bird all same horse!”'

The
Beagle
was cramped, full to the gunwales – seventy-three men, one girl and a well-stocked hold, on a ship barely 100 feet long – and this lack of space aggravated tensions to which the Fuegians were not immune. York was still besotted with Fuegia and kept an eye on her every move. He suspected that all those around him were potential rivals and, as Lieutenant Sulivan later commented, he became ‘so jealous at times, as to require the interference of the captain…'. York's distrust was mainly directed at Jemmy, for whom Fuegia, it seems, held a candle: ‘Jemmy was evidently her favourite,' reported one source. ‘But the strength and ferocity of York gained him the victory.' Fearing that York might even murder Jemmy, the ship's officers threw their weight behind the older man. ‘So Fuegia Basket was betrothed to York Minster,' commented the same source, and she was ‘savagely watched by him the whole time afterwards'.

Jemmy tried to remain aloof from such wrangling. He had become a well-rounded, pleasant and charming young man, a favourite with one and all. His excessive foppishness was ludicrous, but also the toast of the ship: the smallest blemish on his shoes ‘would send him immediately to his cabin, where Day and Martin's services would be in request,' remembered one shipmate. ‘His collar was kept scrupulously clean. He preferred a dress-coat to the rough sou'westers of the officers, and seldom walked on deck without a pair of gloves.'

But if the positive side of Jemmy's heightened sense of fashion was that it symbolised his progress away from savagery, then the negative side was the vanity that accompanied it. So conceited did he become over his appearance that he could be quite churlish. In his
Journal of Researches,
Darwin wrote that the Fuegian boy was ‘short, thick and fat, but vain of his personal appearance … He was fond of admiring himself in a looking glass; and a merry-faced little Indian boy from the Rio Negro, whom we had for some months on board, soon perceived this, and used to mock him.' Jemmy hated this and would say with disdain, ‘Too much skylark.'

These occasional fits of petulance emerged in other ways too. The crew of the
Beagle
were astounded by the strength of Fuegian eyesight, which they reckoned was the equivalent of a European with a telescope. Jemmy would often stand on lookout, watching for other ships, land and rocks. Several times he and York had spotted a speck in the distance and declared it was such and such an object to a sceptical crew, only to have been proved correct. If Jemmy ever quarrelled with any of the
Beagle
's officers, Darwin wrote in his diary, he would sulk and threaten ‘me see ship, me no tell'.

Tantrums aside, however, Jemmy got on well with everyone except York. The voyage was an opportunity to reacquaint himself with friends from the previous trip, notably with the coxswain Bennet and his ‘confidential friend', the assistant surgeon Benjamin Bynoe (who, after the troublesome Robert MacCormick was removed from the ship in Rio, became acting surgeon). Bynoe was held in special trust by all three Fuegians, possibly because he kept a close eye on their health, and on many occasions acted as a direct link between them and the ship's captain. Out on hunting expeditions with FitzRoy, the acting surgeon would give his commander important accounts of his latest findings on the lives and superstitions of the Fuegian people.