To Robert FitzRoy   [10 October 1831]

17 Spring Gardens.

Dear FitzRoy,

Very many thanks for your letter; it has made me most comfortable, for it would have been heart breaking to have left anything quite behind & I never should have thought of sending things by some other vessel. This letter will, I trust accompany some talc.— I read your letter without attending to the name. But I have now procured some from Jones which appears very good—and I will send it this evening by the Mail. You will be surprised at not seeing me propriâ personâ instead of my handwriting But I had just found out that the large steam Packet did not intend to Sail on Sunday & I was picturing to myself a small dirty cabin with the proportion of 39/40 of the passengers very sick—when M^r Earl came in and told me the Beagle would not sail till the beginning of November. This of course settled the point so that I remain in London one week more. I shall then send heavy goods by steamer, and start myself by the Coach on Sunday evening.

Have you a good set of mountain barometers—¹ Several great guns in the Scientific World have told me some points in geology to ascertain which entirely depend on their relative height. If you have not a good stock I will add one more to the list— I ought to be ashamed to trouble you so much but will yousend one line to inform me? I am daily becoming more anxious to be off and if I am so you must be in a perfect fever. What a glorious day the 4^th of November will be to me— My second life will then commence, and it shall be as a birthday for the rest of my life.

Believe me dear FitzRoy, | Yours most sincerely, | Cha^s. Darwin. *S 2

Monday.

I hope I have not put you to much inconvenience by ordering the room in readiness—