The object of the _Beagle_ voyage is briefly described in my father's _Journal of Researches_, p. 1, as being "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 some islands in the Pacific; and to carry a chain of chronometrical measurements round the world."
The _Beagle_ is described[89] as a well-built little vessel, of 235 tons, rigged as a barque, and carrying six guns. She belonged to the old class of ten-gun brigs, which were nicknamed "coffins," from their liability to go down in severe weather. They were very "deep-waisted," that is, their bulwarks were high in proportion to their size, so that a heavy sea breaking over them might be highly dangerous. Nevertheless, she had already lived through five years' work, in the most stormy regions in the world, under Commanders Stokes and Fitz-Roy without a serious accident. When re-commissioned in 1831 for her second voyage, she was found (as I learned from the late Admiral Sir James Sulivan) to be so rotten that she had practically to be rebuilt, and it was this that caused the long delay in refitting.
She was fitted out for the expedition with all possible care: to quote my father's description, written from Devonport, November 17, 1831: "Everybody, who can judge, says it is one of the grandest voyages that has almost ever been sent out. Everything is on a grand scale.... In short, everything is as prosperous as human means can make it." The twenty-four chronometers and the mahogany fittings seem to have been especially admired, and are more than once alluded to.
Owing to the smallness of the vessel, every one on board was cramped for room, and my father's accommodation seems to have been narrow enough.
Yet of this confined space he wrote enthusiastically, September 17, 1831:--"When I wrote last, I was in great alarm about my cabin. The cabins were not then marked out, but when I left they were, and mine is a capital one, certainly next best to the Captain's and remarkably light. My companion most luckily, I think, will turn out to be the officer whom I shall like best. Captain Fitz-Roy says he will take care that one corner is so fitted up that I shall be comfortable in it and shall consider it my home, but that also I shall have the run of his. My cabin is the drawing one; and in the middle is a large table, on which we two sleep in hammocks. But for the first two months there will be no drawing to be done, so that it will be quite a luxurious room, and a good deal larger than the Captain's cabin."