During our brief stay at Bahia I paid a visit to the grave of poor young Musters, a little Middy in the Beagle during our last voyage, who died here on the 19th May, 1832, from the effects of a fever caught while away on an excursion up the river Macacu.  He was a son of Lord Byron’s Mary, and a great favourite with all on board.  Poor boy! no stone marks his lonely resting place upon a foreign shore, but the long grass waves over his humble grave, and the tall palm tree bends to the melancholy wind that sighs above it.  As I paid his memory the tribute due to his many virtues and his early death, I breathed a prayer that the still and placid beauty of the spot where his mortal remains return to their kindred dust, may typify the tranquil happiness of that world of spirits with which his own is now united!

Mr.  “Very well dice.”

On the afternoon of Friday the 25th, we left the magnificent bay of Bahia, and after obtaining an offing, stood away to the southward and eastward.  I was much amused by a story of Grey’s a day or two after we sailed:  it seems he had mistaken the Quartermaster’s usual call in conning the ship of “Very well, dice” (a corruption of “very well, thus”) for a complimentary notice of the man at the helm; and anxious to know the individual who so distinguished himself, had two or three times gone on deck to see “Mr. Very well Dice:”  finding a different helmsman each time, completely confounded him; and when I explained the matter, he joined me in a hearty laugh at the mistake!

CHAPTER 1.3.  FROM THE CAPE TO SWAN RIVER.

A gale. 
Anchor in Simon’s Bay. 
H.M.S.  Thalia. 
Captain Harris, and his Adventures in Southern Africa. 
Proceedings of the Land Party. 
Leave Simon’s Bay. 
An overloaded ship. 
Heavy weather and wet decks. 
Island of Amsterdam. 
Its true longitude. 
St. Paul’s. 
Water. 
Westerly variation. 
Rottnest Island. 
Gage’s Road. 
Swan River Settlement. 
Fremantle. 
An inland lake. 
Plans for the future. 
Illness of Captain Wickham. 
Tidal Phenomena. 
Perth. 
Approach to it. 
Narrow escape of the first settlers. 
The Darling Range. 
Abundant Harvest. 
Singular flight of strange birds. 
Curious Cliff near Swan River. 
Bald Head. 
Mr. Darwin’s Theory. 
The Natives. 
Miago. 
Anecdotes of Natives. 
Their Superstitions. 
Barbarous traditions, their uses and their lessons.

We had, upon the whole, a favourable passage across to the Cape; but on the 17th of September, when distant from it about 500 miles, we encountered a moderate gale from the north.  As this was the first heavy weather we had experienced since our departure from England, I was curious to see what effect such a strange scene would have on our passengers.  Wrapt in mute astonishment, they stood gazing with admiration