Cultivated part of hell Toward the middle of the year the Beagle left behind the South American continent and set sail for the Galápagos islands, where the crew came upon a cheerless scenario: «A jagged field of [irregular or wavelike layers of]
black, basaltic
lava pockmarked with
huge fissures, and covered everywhere with stunted, sun - burnt brushwood,» Darwin complained in his report.