A Sportsman 101 



duties of a national executive had he been called to 

 that high and thankless position. He died young, and 

 will ever be remembered by those who knew him well. 

 I have from him a silver tankard inscribed by him, 

 an unnecessary souvenir of his memory. 



FROM 1853 to 1860, residing in Boston, I made sev- 

 eral trips out to California, by either the Panama 

 route or the Nicaragua, which were the most rapid meth- 

 ods then in vogue, requiring from twenty-five to twenty- 

 eight days. The wooden side-wheel steamers then in 

 use were not to be compared with the present steel- 

 clad propellers; there were many mishaps occurring, 

 and, if I am not mistaken, the prominent steamship 

 line engaged in the California transportation lost from 

 fifteen to twenty steamers in the business before the 

 building of the great continental railway. On one 

 trip we were struck by lightning in the Caribbean 

 Sea, losing our mizzenmast and springing a bad leak, 

 getting into Panama in a somewhat demoralized con- 

 dition. Another time we broke our main shaft and 

 had to roll about in a high sea, until we were picked up 

 by another steamer and towed into port. Another 

 time, with our steamer loaded to its full capacity 

 with some fourteen hundred passengers, we struck a 

 bad leak, in the Pacific Ocean, which gained steadily 

 beyond the capacity of the pumps to relieve, and 

 barely reached San Francisco in time to save the 

 steamer from sinking. 



One time I went out on old Commodore Vander- 

 bilt's opposition line to Greytown, where we had to 

 go up the Rio del Norte on small steamers to Lake 

 Nicaragua, and, crossing that, take donkeys over the 



