Page:Condor20(2).djvu/9

 Mar., 1918 IN MEMOKIAM: LYMAN BELDING 55 out of the trypot I could hardly stand. Another time, when the kikos (police- men) came I went over in the head, climbed down the anchor chain, and swam o a nearby ship, where one of her crew gave me dry clothes and secreted me. During those twenty-one days I spent most of the time in ships' holds, but usually slept in forecastles." His voyage on the Julian took him to Cocos Island, and to the Galapagos Islands. They stopped at Abingdon for terrapin. "We got one that would weigh about 250 pounds, which was quartered for convenience in getting it to the beach. The only bird I saw on the island was a pretty ground dove that was so unaccustomed to men its tameness was shocking.to me." After a cruise of four or five months the Julian returned to Honolulu, and in the spring of 1853 Belding joined the bark Philomela of Portland ("an old tub"). The homeward voyage proved to be a very leaky one, it being neces- sary to jettison part of the cargo of guano which was loaded at the Chincha Islands. He reached home January, 1854. "We were in the Chineha Islands during the summer of 1853 when the American clipper ship was in its glory. Several large, fine clipper ships were taking cargoes of guano. The Defiance was probably superior to any. In those days New England sailors were numerous and inferior to none.' * * * Ex- cepting chilblains caused by chilly, drenching fogs of Kamchatka and the Arc- tic Ocean, I had not had an ailment of any sort. Probably I was benefited by sea air, a sailor's work, and plain food. I learned on the voyage the benefit of a plain life, that a struggle for wealth was folly, that a man should be his own master, but that to be so more or less money was needed." In the spring of 1854 Belding nearly lost his life by shipwreck of Thc Crisis, while he was a passenger enroute to Baltimore from New York. When off Cape Henry a squall struck her; she sank, and the people escaped in an open boat, without oars, compass, water, or food. They picked up boards for oars, and were rescued the following day by a large ship. While they were adrift the captain and mate to keep up their spirits "told of other wrecks and how Brother James and others lost their lives." Mr. Belding came to Stockton in March, 1856. Game was then very abundant and included elk, antelope, deer, quail, and water fowl. He says: "The elk of the State inhabited the tule marshes mainly, though I have seen many elk horns on the Marysville Buttes, probably left there by elk which came from the marshes of Butte Creek. I have seen hundreds, if not thousands, of elk horns on the border of the tule swamps north of Stockton. Antelope have entirely disappeared from the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys. I saw three a few miles west of Princeton in the summer of 1870. Deer were mostly in the mountains with a few along the rivers where there were extens- ive thickets on bottom lands. They will continue to be common with proper protection. I have seen only a few bears in the forest, probably about twenty, and only one undoubted grizzly bear. This I saw in the summer of 1875, when I was fishing on San Antonio Creek, near the Calaveras grove of sequoias. "One of my favorite hunting localities was Summit Soda Springs on the North Fork of the American l{iver. Game was abundant and deer came every night to drink of the iron water. There was plenty of quail and grouse shoot- ing and an abundance of trout in the river. On the Middle Fork there was good trout fishing and numerous bears. "Beaver and otter were plentiful in the sloughs and tule marsh about