IN the 1830s, Royal Navy captain Robert Fitzroy conceived a strange experiment. He decided to bring back to England four 'uncivilised' Fuegian indians from the wilds of Tierra del Fuego and have them educated in a London infant school.

His idea was then to take them home, in the hope they would spread the light of Christian civilisation among their own people.

What particularly intrigued Harry Thompson about this experiment, however, was that Fitzroy's ship was HMS Beagle. And on board with him when he set sail to return the Fuegians to their home was a young naturalist by the name of Charles Darwin.

Thompson - now, sadly, battling lung cancer - chose to turn the story of the voyage of HMS Beagle into his first novel. It's a magnificent achievement: gripping, tautly-written, filled with unforgettable landscapes, incidents and flashes of humour, and bursting with ideas.

Thompson has done his research, and his understanding of the pre-Victorians' desperate hunger to understand and make sense of their world fills this book and brings the characters to life.

Most poignant of all, however, are the four Fuegians, who in this novel achieve a genuine humanity that was denied to them by the prejudices of 1830s British society. Wonderful.

Updated: 08:49 Saturday, July 09, 2005