CHARLES DARWIN TO J.M. HERBERT. Maldonado, Rio Plata, June 2, 1833.
My dear Herbert,
I have been confined for the last three days to a miserable dark room, in an old Spanish house, from the torrents of rain; I am not, therefore, in very good trim for writing; but, defying the blue devils, I will send you a few lines, if it is merely to thank you very sincerely for writing to me. I received your letter, dated December 1st, a short time since. We are now passing part of the winter in the Rio Plata, after having had a hard summer's work to the south. Tierra del Fuego is indeed a miserable place; the ceaseless fury of the gales is quite tremendous. One evening we saw old Cape Horn, and three weeks afterwards we were only thirty miles to windward of it. It is a grand spectacle to see all nature thus raging; but Heaven knows every one in the "Beagle" has seen enough in this one summer to last them their natural lives.
The first place we landed at was Good Success Bay. It was here Banks and Solander met such disasters on ascending one of the mountains. The weather was tolerably fine, and I enjoyed some walks in a wild country, like that behind Barmouth. The valleys are impenetrable from the