Some of the events of In Darwin’s Wake (Waterline, £18.95, ISBN 1 85310
755 7) are scary. One was to anchor a sailing ship for a night a few miles off
Cape Horn. John Campbell, the author, had been hired to skipper the ship on a
voyage round South America. He realised that this would take him along the route
of Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle, and his book shows the changes that a century
and a half have brought. It reads like a long, entertaining letter home.
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