in flames--the sky with lightning,
the water with luminous particles, and even the very masts are pointed
with a blue flame. I expect great interest in scouring over the plains
of Monte Video, yet I look back with regret to the Tropics, that magic
lure to all naturalists. The delight of sitting on a decaying trunk
amidst the quiet gloom of the forest is unspeakable and never to be
forgotten. How often have I then wished for you. When I see a banana I
well recollect admiring them with you in Cambridge--little did I then
think how soon I should eat their fruit.

August 15th. In a few days the box will go by the "Emulous" packet
(Capt. Cooke) to Falmouth and will be forwarded to you. This letter goes
the same way, so that if in course of due time you do not receive the
box, will you be kind enough to write to Falmouth? We have been here
(Monte Video) for some time; but owing to bad weather and continual
fighting on shore, we have scarcely ever been able to walk in the
country. I have collected during the last month nothing, but to-day I
have been out and returned like Noah's Ark with animals of all sorts.
I have to-day to my astonishment found two Planariae living under dry
stones: ask L. Jenyns if he has ever heard of this fact. I also found a
most curious snail, and spiders, beetles, snakes, scorpions ad libitum,
and to conclude shot a Cavia weighing a cwt.--On Friday we sail for the
Rio Negro, and then will commence our real wild work. I look forward
with dread to the wet stormy regions of the south, but after so much
pleasure I must put up with some sea-sickness and misery.

LETTER 4. TO J.S. HENSLOW. Monte Video, 24th November 1832.

We arrived here on the 24th of October, after our first cruise on the
coast of Patagonia. North of the Rio Negro we fell in with some little
schooners employed in sealing: to save the loss of time in surveying the
intricate mass of banks, Capt. Fitz-Roy has hired two of them and has
put officers on them. It took us nearly a month fitting them out; as
soon as this was finished we came back here, and are now preparing for a
long cruise to the south. I expect to find the wild mountainous country
of Terra del Fuego very interesting, and after the coast of Patagonia I
shall thoroughly enjoy it.--I had hoped for the credit of Dame Nature,
no such country as this last existed; in sad reality we coasted along
240 miles of sand hillocks; I never knew before, what a horrid ugly
object a sand hi