In 1808, at 22, he started with four others, one of whom was his brother-in-law Theodore Galton, on a tour through Spain, the Mediterranean and the Near East. Travelling was not then what it is now, and they came in contact with war, robbers, privateers and the plague in the diary of this two years' tour in the East. Of the five who started, only Darwin returned alive. The diary of the tour shows a keen antiquarian taste gratified under many difficulties, and it is recognised that Darwin not only loved adventure for its own sake, but was a born naturalist also, whose ready pencil followed a keen eye, where rock and mineral, plant and beast were concerned, as readily as when it portrayed an archaeological novelty or displayed the costumes of Greece or Turkey. Typical of the man is the account he gives of the plague in Smyrna; instead of flying from the place, he remarks
On the 2nd day we again found ourselves at Smyrna amongst the plague, which had increased, 400 persons having died in our absence. I had now an opportunity of watching the progress of this disorder in several English sailors, who having been on shore, had caught the infection. I also visited the Armenian, and Greek hospitals, where numbers were dying daily of the plague.
At Smyrna also we hear the tale of a gun discharged immediately under the window, which their host informed them was the shooting of another cat by a soldier posted to shoot the cats coming out of the next house where everybody but the baby had died of plague; the cats being the chief transporters of the infection. Darwin, wanting more experience of the plague, on another return to Smyrna undertook by invitation of the native physicians charge of several hospitals, of which the Greek and Armenian contained each 120 patients.
This was a good opportunity to become conversant, with the diseases of the climate, and from constant observation I found the plague was frequently checked by an active practice of which the Medici of the East were totally ignorant. Intermittent fevers and the Lepra Graecorum are very peculiar in the Levant. Hard eggs and salt fish being the hospital diet, phthisis is most prevalent.
During the tour Darwin visited Tangiers, Tetuan, and attempted to get into Fes, not then visited by Europeans, but was not permitted to reach that closed centre of Islam. His wife's copy of her husband's diary was the source for Travels in Spain and the East, 1808-1810; by Sir Francis Sacheverell Darwin; . Cambridge: University Press, 1927.
Marriage and children
On 16 December 1815 he married Jane Harriet Ryle - at St. George, Hanover Square London. They had the following children:
Mary Jane Darwin, married Charles Carill-Worsley of Platt Hall, near Manchester, in 1840. One daughter,
*Elizabeth, married Nicolas Tindal of Aylesbury Manor. Four children survived infancy :
**Charles, Captain RN, married Rose Dalby, leaving no issue;
The strange element in Darwin's life is that he returned home, and after a short practice in Lichfield, where his father had a practice, settled down at Breadsall Priory in Derbyshire, and spent his days in studying archaeology and natural history without ulterior end; his home was full of animal oddities as well as tame snakes, while there were wild pigs in the woods. He transmitted his love of natural history to his son Edward Levett Darwin, author of a 'Gamekeeper's Manual', which shows keen observation of the habits of various animals. Darwin was knighted by George IV in 1820, and was also a Deputy Lieutenant of Derbyshire. Both he and his wife are buried at Breadsall Priory, and a memorial plaque to them and some of their family is located in All Saints' Church, Breadsall.
