54 THE CONDOR Vol. XX 



he sprained his ankle chasing two gray squirrels which were rare although the 

 black of the same species was very common. "^When I was a small boy 1 have 

 seen several hundred black-squirrels which had been killed in hunting matches, 

 and only two or three gray squirrels were among them. ' ' 



In the autumn of 1846 he was severely ill for a month with typhoid fever. 

 After his recovery from this, intermittent fever kept him so debilitated that his 

 doctor advised a sea voyage. Accordingly, after journeying first to Boston 

 and thence to New Bedford, young Belding, in his twenty-second year, was 

 shipped as a novice on the Arctic whaler, Uncas, July 5, 1851. 



' ' The shipping master wanted to know what I was going to sea for and I 

 told him I wanted adventures that I could tell my children, and he laughed. 

 A smart Alec advised me to take an umbrella along. I must have looked too 

 frail for a sailor. The most of our crew were land-lubbers, and when we got 

 into the Gulf Stream we ran into a severe gale. During the night all hands 

 were called to shorten sail. It was a severe trial for a lot of boys who had not 

 yet got their sea legs, but there was no flinching. With the help of a few ex- 

 perienced men the work was done all right. In coming down from aloft we 

 went cautiously from ratline to ratline, until Burns, the third mate, shouted 

 to those below him: 'Don't squeeze all the tar out of the standing rigging.' " 



This voyage lasted three and a half years. The Uncas visited the Azores, 

 Cape of Good Hope, St. Paul or Amsterdam Island, New Zealand, and reached 

 Bering Straits, July 1, 1852, touching at Guam on the way. During this first 

 year Lyman Belding became a seasoned whaling man and gathered a goodly 

 store of adventures. At the Cape of Good Hope the Uncas was mistaken for a 

 pirate ship. Later they ran into a school of whales and killed ten or a dozen. 

 "Nothing worthy of note," he writes, "occurred until we were at the edge of 

 the Sea of Japan, and were struck by a typhoon. Our trypots were full of 

 blubber and boiling oil, and no time was lost in bailing it out lest the careening 

 of the ship cause it to slop over on the deck." 



"During our cruise in the Arctic we went as far north as the 73d degree, 

 were successful in capturing bowhead whales, several times working forty- 

 eight or fifty hours without sleep or rest, the sun being above the horizon con- 

 tinuously." When the sun went below the horizon the Uncas turned south. 



Of their stop at Petropavlovski, a Russian penal colony, he remarks : ' ' Bear 

 tracks were plentiful by the little brook where we got water. The bears were 

 attracted by huckleberries. A. M. Abbot of Boston, supercargo of a ship in 

 port, passed us on his way down the bay. He had two Russians with short 

 scythes and two large dogs in the boat with him. He said the dogs would bring 

 the bear to bay, and the Russians would hamstring them with their scythes, a 

 way of hunting that would be a failure with grizzlies. I noticed that Mr. Ab- 

 bot had a gun. ' ' 



On their arrival at Honolulu, late in the year, they found a hundred and 

 fifty whaling ships. Life on the Uncas having become well-nigh unbearable, 

 Belding deserted, and after hiding for three weeks, got to sea on the Julian of 

 Martha's Vineyard. During his enforced "seclusion" he spent a day in a try- 

 pot, or kettle, of about five barrels capacity. "I went into it," he writes, "be- 

 fore daylight, with the tarpaulin raised to admit air. I was very uncomforta- 

 ble in my cramped position, lying on several angular pieces of wood which 

 were thrown in to keep me above several inches of bilge water, and a tropical 

 sun made it almost unendurable, but I remained until night, and when I got 



