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You're built to win it. Welcome to the newscast. The podcast is on to help you fall asleep.

Find us at snoocast.com and if you enjoy our show, please share it with a friend. This episode is brought to you by a noble forest. Tonight, we'll read excerpts from the second chapter of British naturalist Charles Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle. This chapter explores Rio de Janeiro and its surrounding environment. The Voyage of the Beagle is the title most commonly given to the book published in 1839 as Darwin's journals and remarks, bringing him considerable fame and respect. If you'd like to start from the beginning, the first of this series aired on June 10,, 2024. Rio de Janeiro is a seaside city in Brazil, with almost 7 million residents. Now it is famous for its beautiful resort beaches, its carnival, somba dancers, street art, its weather and its huge Christ the Redeemer statue,

a top-mount crocovado.

In this episode, Darwin explores the ecology, geology, and in his words,

the shimmering tropical splendor in Brazil.

Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed. Now take a few deep breaths. A Pro 4th to July 5th, 1832. A few days after our arrival, I became acquainted with an Englishman who was going to visit his estate, situated rather more than a hundred miles from the capital, to the northward of Cape Frio. I gladly accepted his kind offer of allowing me to accompany him. April 8th Our party amounted 7th. The first stage was very interesting. The day was powerfully hot. And as we passed through the woods, everything was motionless, accepting the large and brilliant, which lazily fluttered about. The view seen from crossing the hills was most beautiful. The colors were intense, and the prevailing tint a dark blue. sky and the calm waters of the bay vied with each other in splendor. After passing through some cultivated country, we entered a forest, which, in the grandeur of all its parts, could not be exceeded. We arrived by midday at the Caea. This small village is situated on a plane. These from their regular form and position reminded me of the drawings of habitations in southern Africa. As the moon rose early, we determined to start the same evening for our sleeping place at the La Goia Marica. As it was growing dark, we passed under one of the massive bear and steep hills of granite, which are so common in this country. We continued riding for some hours. For After the few last miles, the road was intricate, and it passed through a desert waste of marshes and lagoons. The scene by the dim delight of the moon was most desolate. A few fireflies flitted by us, and the solitary snipe, as it rose, uttered its plaintiff cry. The distant and sullen roar of the sea scarcely broke the stillness of the night. April 9th We left our miserable sleeping place before sunrise. The road passed through a narrow sandy plain, lying between the sea and the interior salt lagoon. The number of beautiful fishing birds, such as eagrets and cranes, and the succulent plants assuming most fantastical forms, gave to the scene an interest which it would not otherwise have possessed. The few stunted trees were loaded with parasitical plants, among which the beauty and delicious fragrance of some of the orchids were most to be admired. As the sun rose, the day became extremely hot, and the reflection of the light and heat from the white sand was unpleasant. We dined, the thermometer in the shade being 84 degrees. beautiful view of the distant wooded hills reflected in the perfectly calm water of an extensive lagoon quite refreshed us. I have the pleasant but rare remembrance of an excellent dinner, and I will be grateful to presently describe it as the type of its class. These houses are often large and are built of thick upright posts, with bows interwoven and afterwards plastered, they seldom have floors and never glazed windows, but are generally pretty well roofed. Universally the front part is open, forming a kind of veranda in which tables and benentures are placed. The bedrooms join on each side, and here the passenger may sleep as comfortably as he can, on a wooded platform covered by a thin straw mat. The Venda stands in a courtyard where the horses are fed. On first arriving, it was our custom to unsettle the horses and give them their corn, then with a low bow to ask the senor to do us the favor to give up something to eat. Anything you choose, sir, was his usual answer. For the first few times, I vainly thanked Providence for having guided us to so good a man. The conversation proceeding, the case universally became deplorable. Any fish can you do us the favor of giving? Oh, no sir. Any soup? No sir. Any bread? Oh no sir. Any dried meat? Oh no sir. If we were lucky, by waiting a couple of hours, we obtained fowls and rice. Upon leaving, we continued to pass through an intricate wilderness of lakes, in some of which were fresh, in other salt water shells. Of the former kinds, I found in great numbers in a lake into which the inhabitants assured me that the sea enters once a year, and sometimes oftener, and makes the water quite salt. I have no doubt many interesting facts in relation to marine and fresh water animals. Might be observed in this chain of lagoon, which skirt the coast of Brazil. I also frequently observed in lagoon near the Botanic Garden where the water is only a little less salt than in the sea, a species of hydrophilus, very similar to a water beetle common in the ditches of England. In the same lake, the only shell belonged to a genus generally found in estuaries. Leaving the coast for a time, we again interred the forest. The trees were very lofty and remarkable compared with those of Europe, from the whiteness of their trunks. I seek by my notebook wonderful and beautiful flowering parasites, invariably struck me as the most novel object in these grand scenes. Onwards we we passed through tracts of pasture hitch, much injured by the enormous conical ants nests, which were nearly 12 feet high. They gave to the plane exactly the appearance of mud volcanoes. We arrived at Enginodo after it was dark, having been ten hours on horseback. I never ceased during the whole journey to be surprised at the amount of labor which the horses were capable of enduring. They appeared also to recover from any injury much sooner than those of our English breed. April 13th After three days traveling, we arrived at Sokego, the estate of Senor Manuel Figuereda, a relation of one of our party. The house was simple, and though, like a barn in form, was well suited to the climate. In the sitting room, guilded chairs and sofas were oddly contrasted with the white washed walls, thatched roof and windows without glass. The house, together with the greeneries, the stables, and workshops, formed a rude kind of quadrangle, in the center of which a large pile of coffee was drying. These buildings stand on a little hill, overlooking the cultivated ground, and surrounded on every beside by a wall of dark green luxuriant

forest. The chief produce of this part of the country is coffee. Each tree is supposed to yield annually on an average two pounds, but some give as much as eight. Every part of this plant is useful. The leaves and stalks are eaten by the horses, and the roots are ground into a pulp, which when pressed dry and baked forms the verenia, the principal article of sustenance in the

brazil's. This profusion of food showed itself at dinner, where, if the tables did not groan, the guests surely did. For each person is expected to eat of every dish. One day, having, as I thought, nicely calculated so that nothing should go away untaste it, to my utter dismay, a roast turkey and a pig appeared in all their substantial reality. As soon as any stranger is seen arriving, a large bell is set tolling, and generally some small canon are fired. The event is thus announced to the rocks and woods, but to nothing else. One morning I walked out an hour before daylight to admire the solemn stillness of the scene. At last the silence was broken by the morning him, and in this manner their daily work is generally begun. April 14th, leaving, we wrote to another estate on the Rio Macau, which was the last batch of cultivated ground in that direction. The estate was two and a half miles long, and the owner had forgotten how many broad. Only a very small piece had been cleared. Yet almost every acre was capable of yielding all the various rich productions of a tropical land. Considering the enormous area of Brazil, the proportion of cultivated ground can scarcely be considered as anything compared to that which is left in the state of nature. At some future age, how vast a population it will support. During the second day's journey, we found the road so shut up that it was necessary that a man should go ahead with a sword to cut away the creepers. forest abounded with beautiful objects, among which the tree ferns, though not large, were from their bright green foliage and the elegant curvature of their fronds, most worthy of admiration. In the evening it rained very heavily, and although the thermometer stood at 65 degrees, I felt very cold. As soon as the rain ceased, it was curious to observe the extraordinary evaporation which commenced over the whole extent of the forest. At the height of a hundred feet, the hills were buried in a dense white vapor, which rose like columns of smoke from the most thickly wooded parts, and especially from the valleys. I observed this phenomenon on several occasions. I suppose it is owing to the large surface of foliage previously heated by the Sun's rays. April 18th. In returning we spent two days at Sakego, and I employed them in collecting insects in the forest.

The greater number of trees, although so lofty, are not more than three or four feet in circumference. There are, of course, a few of much greater dimensions. Senyur Manuel was then making a canoe, 70 feet in length, from a solid trunk, which had originally been 110 feet long, and of great thickness. The contrast of palm trees, growing amidst the common branching kinds, never fails to give this scene an inter-tropical character. Here the woods were ornamented by the cabbage palm, one of the most beautiful of its family, with a stem so narrow that it might be clasped with the two hands. It waves its elegant head at the height of forty or fifty feet above the ground. Lwoodie creepers, themselves covered by other creepers, were of great thickness, some which I measured were two feet in circumference. Many of the older trees presented a very curious appearance from the trecess of a lion hanging from their bows, and resembling bundles of hay. If the eye was turned from the world the foliage above to the ground beneath, it was attracted by the extreme elegance of the leaves of the ferns. In some parts covered the surface with a brushwood only a few inches high.

In walking across these thick beds, a broad track was marked by the change of shade. It is easy to specify the individual objects of admiration in these grand scenes, but It is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, astonishment, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind. April 19th From the first two days we retraced our steps. It was very wear some work. As the road generally ran across a glaring hot sandy plain, not far from the coast. I noticed that each time the horse put its foot on the fine sand, a gentle chirping noise was produced. On the third day, we took a different line and passed through the little village of Madre de Deos. This is one of the principal lines of road in Brazil. Yet it was in so bad a state that no wheeled vehicle, accepting the clumsy Bullock wagon, could pass along. In our whole journey, we did not cross a single bridge built of stone, and those made of logs of wood were frequently so much out of repair that it was necessary to go on one side to avoid them. distances are inaccurately known. On the evening of the 23rd, we arrived at Rio. Having finished, our pleasant little excursion. During the remainder of my stay at Rio, I resided in a cottage at Boatafogo Bay. It was impossible to wish for anything more delightful than thus to spend some weeks in so magnificent a country. In England any person fond of natural history enjoys in his walks a great advantage by always having something to attract his attention. But in these fertile climates, teeming with life, the attractions are so numerous that he is scarcely able to walk at all. The few observations which I was enabled to make were almost exclusively confined to the invertebrate animals. Numerous species inhabit both salt and fresh water, but those to which I elude were found even in the drier parts of the forest beneath logs of rotten wood, on which I believe they feed. In general form, they resemble little slugs, but are very much narrower in proportion, and several of the species are beautifully colored with longitudinal stripes. Their structure is very simple. Everyone has heard of the beauty of this scenery near Botifogo, the house in which I lived was seated close beneath the well-known mountain of the Corcovado. It has been remarked with much truth that abruptly conical hills are characteristic of the formation which humbled designates as a nice granite. Nothing can be more striking than the effect of these huge rounded masses of naked rock rising out of the most luxuriant vegetation. I was often interested by watching the clouds, which rolling in from seaword formed a bank just beneath the highest point of the Corcovano. This mountain, like most others, when thus partly veiled, appeared to rise to a far-prouder elevation than its real height of 2300 feet. Mr. Daniel has observed in his meteorological essays that a cloud sometimes appears fixed on a mountain summit, while the wind continues to blow over it. The same phenomenon here presented a slightly different appearance. In this case, the cloud was clearly seen to curl over and rapidly pass by the summit, and yet was neither diminished nor increased in size. The sun was setting and a gentle southern Libreys striking against the southern side of the rock, mingled its current with the colder air above. And the vapor was thus condensed. But as the light wreaths of cloud passed over the ridge and came within the influence of the warmer atmosphere of the northern sloping bank. They were immediately redesolved. The climate during the months of May and June, or the beginning of winter, was delightful. The mean temperature from observations taken at 9 o'clock, both morning and evening, was only 72 degrees. It often rained heavily, but the drying, southernly winds, Soon again rendered the walks pleasant. One morning, in the course of six hours, 1.6 inches of rain fell, as this storm passed over the forests which surrounded the corkivado, the sound produced by the drops pattering on the countless multitude of leaves was very remarkable. It could be heard at the distance of a quarter of a mile and was like the rushing of a great body of water. the hotter days. it was delicious to sit quietly in the garden, and watch the evening pass into night. Nature, in these climates, chooses her vocalists from more humble performers than in Europe. A small frog sits on a blade of grass about an inch above the surface of the water and sends forth a pleasing chirp. When several are together, they sing in harmony on different notes. I had some difficulty in catching a specimen of this frog. Every evening after dark, this great concert commenced, and often have I sat listening to it, until my attention has been drawn away by some curious passing insect. At these times, the fireflies are seen flitting about from hedge to hedge. On a dark night, the light can be seen at about 200 p.m. distant. I have observed the light has been of a well-marked green color. The flash was almost co-instantaneous in the two rings, but it was just perceptible first in the anterior one. On some occasions I enjoyed short but most pleasant excursions in the neighboring country. One day I went to the Botanic Garden where many plants well known for their great utility might

be seen growing.