Australia. Darwin quite fell in love with the rainforest. His first encounter with it was the fulfilment a long-held dream to travel to the tropics; "the delight Darwin felt amidst the quiet gloom of a tropical forest [was] indeed unspeakable, never to be forgotten, and certainly not to be described" (Dorsey 55). Hisappreciation of the natural world deepened daily; he gloried in every detail. During a day in the jungle, he noted a "most paradoxical mixture of sound and silence pervad[ing] the shady parts of the wood...such a day...[brought] with it a deeper pleasure that he [could] ever hope to experience again" (Darwin 12). This passion brought out other sides to his own nature that he had never seen before. Darwin also found within himself a previously-unknown courage of the physical kind. He "suffered greatly from seasickness" (Sears 31), but said little, for fear "that FitzRoy [found] him too soft for the voyage....he could only complain as little as possible, set his teeth and hold on" (Moorehead 42). He was frequently laid low by bites and scratches that became easily infected, but rarely lay idle if he could help it. Otherwise, he was physically fit; he climbed several mountains and crossed the Andes. Darwin discovered a sense of adventure that accompanied his courage; he rode overland from El Carmen to Buenos Aires through area that "was a no man's land where the Indians make spasmodic raid on travellers whenever and wherever they could" (Moorehead 109). He also proved to have a touch of the bloodthirsty buccaneer in him; when an armed Argentinian guardship stopped them at Rio Plata, "Darwin's blood was up. [He said,] 'Oh I hope the guardship will fire a gun at the Frigate. If she does it will be her last day above water.'" (Moorehead 80). Certain events also brought home to Darwin what kind of world he was momentarily inhabiting. The most momentous of these was a great earthquake, which laid low a great city: "It [was] one of t...
