S02 
FOREST AND STHEAM. 
[Oct. 20,- 1500. 
it 6ii't ; nor could diligent search ever recover it. Those 
who know the charm of Captain Ogden's style and the 
interesting character of his reminiscences will ..understand 
in. some measure what was lost to us when these stories 
of the men and the scenes of the old army were destroyed, 
' 'Captain Ogden was noted throughout the army for his 
horses, dogs, guns and extensive sporting outfit, and with 
these, then and in later years, as is told in our yachtnig 
columns to-day, he was ever ready to equip his friends. 
In, recent years, as he often wrote in his "Commentaries" 
an^l^OREST AND STREAM, though he had lessened inclina- 
tion to use his guns in the field, he delighted as much as 
ever in the contemplation of their artistic perfection, and 
He' iised. to confess that he could never pass the window 
of a gun shop without stopping to admire the gvtns and 
perhaps envy their possessors. 
Always active in the promotion of sports, he was one of 
the chief organizers of the San Francisco Yacht Club, 
established the California Sportsmen's Club and social 
clubs. He built the first ark, the favorite type of shoot- 
ing boats with California duck marsh shooters, imported 
foreign game birds, and bred high class dogs. All in 
.all, he led an active and busy life, during which he man- 
aged to travel extensively and to see much of the world ; 
.he met with many adventurous experiences, and amassed 
a' store of reminiscences for the unfailing entertainment 
of his hosts of friends. It was this extended experience, 
this wide knowledge of the world, this understanding of 
human nature with its foibles which gave character to 
Ms writings and made him for quarter of a century one of 
the favorite- contributors to Forest and Stream. His 
stories of field incidents, his. accounts of the many curious 
pets he had made of wild animals, and his good natured 
"Commentaries" on the writings of other contributors, all 
these were of material and style that insured an interested 
reading of whatever Avas printed over the signature of 
Podgers. As a writer Podgers reflected the humor and 
: ijihrewdness and kindliness which made his conversation 
'^l;#a.ys interesting and his companionship so delightful 
t. When Capt. Ogden was a clerk in the office of the 
United States Quartermaster at San Francisco, in 1855, 
Gen. U. S. Grant, then Captain Grant, having resigned 
liis commission, left Oregon, where his command was 
stationed, and set out to return to his farm near St. 
iliouis. Mo. What happened upon Grant's arrivabin San 
Francisco is told in the following extracts from Captain 
Ogden's diary: 
i':;As r was closing the office a shabbily dressed person 
.'caihe in and inquired for Major Allen,^ Q. M:, who had 
ijijst left. I did not at first recognize him, but on asking 
if '1, could attend to the matter of his business with the 
lij^jqr, he produced a certificate for per diern services 
dii, a court-martial, which, of course, identified him. 
TThe ; certificate entitled him to about $40, but it 
Av^is/ incorrectly drawn and virtually void, of . which 
f^^t' I "informed him, and also that we were destitute of 
lunis wherewith to pay it in any case, whereupon his 
countenance fell, and a look of utter despair came over 
it. Ho turned to leave the office, then hesitated a 
;mdment and turning back asked me if I would allow him 
to sleep "on the* old lounge in Major Allen's office in 
the next room, for," .said he, "I have not a cent to my 
■ name." I said, "You need not do that; here is a dollar 
for your lodgings." He replied, "I am greatly obliged, 
^but with your permission, I will use the dollar for my 
dinner and breakfast and the lounge will save me the 
■ dcillar." So he slept on the rickety old lounge, and I 
found him there when I went to the office early in the 
"rtibrning, and when I said, "You had a hard bed," he 
:ir'ejilied, "Oh, I slept well, and saved my dollar." 
'"' He said that the certificate was a matter of much 
importance to him, as he had depended upon the amount 
to pay for a steerage passage East, and without it he 
'could not do it. I was so struck with his look of de- 
;;j'e,Ction that I .said, "Well, I will cash the certificate 
■■personally, and can send it back to Oregon for correc- 
tion." His face brightened up at once, and signing the 
visual voucher, he said, "I km greatly obliged to you 
for the favor, and now I must go and get my ticket." 
It occurred to me that I could help him in that direction, 
;=*0d, possibly, and said, "I will go to the office with you, 
• and may get you some concession." Walking over to 
• the Pacific Mail Steamship office I left him outside, and 
going in explained the case to Mr. Babcock. We were 
"paying the company thousands of dollars for transpor- 
tation and I frequently obtained concessions for officers 
:in the way of free passes for their families, hence did 
jnot hesitate to ask. Mr. Babcock in his prompt, off hand 
^way, said, "What do you want?" 1 said as near a free 
,pass as he could give in the cabin. He called to the 
Mticket .clerk, Mr. Haven, and gave o'rders to issue a cabin 
" ticket on payment, of the regular fare across the Isthmus, 
> which the company had ' to pay for each passenger, 
r which in his case was tantamount to a free pass to New 
York. I came out of the office and announced my suc- 
. •cess' to; Captain Grant, who, as a matter of course, was 
jdehghted, as the arrangement left him with some little 
money, fifteen dollars, in his pocket when he landed in 
■. New York to get home with. 
4 ,1. Having occasion to go to the steamer to' see friends 
j:<3ffi I met the Captain again and he showed me the nice 
stateroom that had fallen to his lot, and said, "This is 
, great luxury and what I did not exoect, and I am in- 
.debted to you for it," and adding, "the. prospect of -ever 
being able to reciprocate is certainly remote, but strange 
things -hapoen in this world, and there is nb knowing-rl 
..f>i)ly-wish I could see the way to. do it, for you have been 
verv' kind to me, when I had no claim upon you at all." 
How Drophetic his words were we all can testify, nor 
■did he forget the favor, for when, later, I held a com- 
mi^yion, an<3 was desirops of being ordered East, he was 
asked by General Rufus Ingalls to indorse my appli- 
cation, he did so, saying. "Have him ordered to your 
staff of assistants." General Wright telegraphed' that I 
could not be spared, hence I did not get East. 
Subsequently when he became President, I was written 
to by General Babcock. by his order, asking, me what 
he could do for me, byt having no political ambition, i 
^id "nothing." , . . 
I did not see him again irom the time I bade him 
R. L. OGDEN. 
good-bye on the steamer until. one day about a year be- 
fore his death, I met him in the elevator in Wall street, 
when he at once recognized me and shaking hands, said, 
"Are you still living in San Francisco? And why did 
you leave the army?" I said to better my condition. He 
musingly remarked, "Perhaps some may by resigning, 
but isn't it pretty much the case of the hare and the 
tortoise?" 
THE MOSQUITO MALARIA EXPERIMENTS. 
Sevebai. months ago, during ihe discussion of the 
mosquito malaria theory, first formulated by Dr. Manson, 
ir was announced in the Forest 'and Stre:am that an in- 
teresting experiment to test this theory was about to be 
made in Italy. Dr. L. Sanbom and Dr. G. C. Low, of 
the London School of Tropical Medicine, arranged to 
spend the time from May to October in the most danger- 
ous part of the Roman Campagna, near Ostia. This is a 
situation where scarcely any individual spends the night 
without contracting a virulent type of malarial fever. 
These doctors were to. be exposed to the night air, to 
drink the water, and to take no quinine, but to use the one 
precaution of protecting themselves against the bites. of 
the Anopheles — the malaria-carrying mosquito. This ex^ 
periment.has been going on since May, the investigators 
living in a mosquito-proof house during the hours wheii 
the mosquitoes feed — that is to say, from an "hour before 
sunset until an hour after sunrise. 
On Sept. 13 Prof. Grasst visited the investigators, and 
having found their physical condition excellent, he sent 
a telegram to Dr. Manson, congratulating him on the 
results thus far reached. It thus appears that the ex- 
periment, so far as it has gone, strongly supports the 
mosquito theory of malar i,a. 
Furtlier evidence is-given by a Dr. Elliott, a member of 
an expedition sent out from England to investigate 
malarial fevers in Nigeria. He states that the members 
of the expedition, although having spent months in places 
noted for their malarious character, have been perfectly 
well. They have, however, 'bmti m.0St bareful in their 
use of mosquito nets, and themselves attribute their 
freedom from illness to this care. All this is negative 
evidence of very strong character, but there is positive 
evidence to be had also. 
Dr. Manson's son, a young man who has never been in 
a malarious country since childhood, has proved the con- 
verse of what has been shown by the experiments of Dr. 
Sanbom and Dr. Low. By escaping mosquitoes these 
gentlemen escaped also malaria, but at Dr. Manson's re- 
quest there were recently sent to London three cages of 
the mosquito which carries malaria, which mosquitoes 
had been fed in Rome on the blood of a patient suffering 
from malaria. These mosquitoes were received in Lon- 
don in three batches, the first one arriving early in July 
and the others respectively in August and September. 
Young Mr. Manson was bitten every second day by the 
insects of each batcli until they died — a period usually of 
about ten days. The subject of the experiment con- 
tinued in excellent health until Sept. 13, when his tem- 
perature began to rise, and he showed all the symptoms 
of malarial infection of a double tertian type. Further 
examination revealed the presence of the .malaria parasite 
io .the young man's blood.. ■. - . 
■These experiments are of^ the highest Interest, and give 
the greatest encouragement to further investigation. 
They will undoubtedly be continued until results havr 
been arrived at so iJefinite as to be of permanent an4 
lasting- \s,hm to the rgce, 
A Visit to Rowland Robinson's. 
^_From Forest and Streamy Dec. 10, 1898. 
The other day 1 made a jpilgrimage by boat and bicycle 
to the home of the sage of the Little Otter. The house 
stands on a rocky elevation, twenty or thirty rods back 
from 'the main road, surrounded by a native growth of 
oak and beech and hickory, except in front, where the 
exotic locusts and Lombardy poplars mark the approach. 
A mile away on either side are Lewis and Little Otter 
creeks, and in front is Lake Champlain, though no water 
can be seen from the house. 
The principal feature of the landscape is the Adiron- 
dack Mountain range, of which there is a magnificent 
view. The house is a fine old mansion, the newer por- 
tion dating back of the War of 1812, and the older part 
antedating the Revolution. 
Inside is a wealth of trophies and much interesting 
and beautiful material of especial interest to sports- 
men. There are arrow-heads and implements used by 
the primeval hunters of the Champlain lowlands, and 
bullet moulds and rifles of the white men who followed. 
The antlers of a Vermont moose are over the door, and 
near by are antlers of elk and deer. On the walls hang 
half a dozen guns, and sketches and paintings of game 
and fishing and shooting subjects abound. The atmos- 
phere of the home is distinctly artistic, for not only masi- 
ter and mistress have the talent for visual expression, 
but also one of the daughters. Mrs. Robinson's oil paint-., 
ings of game are truthful and felicitous, but in father and 
daughter the love of line, as exemplified in black and white 
illustration, is the ruling motive. 
In his latest book, "A Hero of Ticonderoga," is an 
admirable portrait of Rowland E. Robinson. It is the 
face of a strong, thoughtful and broad-minded man—- 
a man who, despite the fact that he cannot see his sdr- ■ 
roundings, takes the keenest interest in every-day life,.- 
and criticises men and events with a philosophy that is. 
alike humorous and kindly. What the picture does not 
describe is tlie good coloring and hardy physique of the 
sixty-five-year-old six-footer, 
Mr, Robinson does not strike you as being a blind 
man. Certainly no one ^ever parted with eyesight more 
gracefully. 
In conversation his look follows the speaker, and there 
is no feeling of anything out of the way or call foi- 
sympathy or special attention that is sometimes so awk^ 
ward and constraining. Robinson is a born host, and 
instinctively puts his guest at his ease. 
Our conversation was largely about Forest a-nu 
Stream. Mr. Robinson has a love of the paper nour- 
ished by many years' friendship with its editors and con- 
tributors. He mentioned them all by name, and in- 
cluded Schember and Day, of the printing office force, . 
hut for fear I should leave some of these FoREstf .and 
Stream friends out, I will not attempt to give the list. 
Of two of the brotherhood who have gone to the "ma- 
jority he made particular mention. One was UffOrd. 
whose story of the Irishman treed by a pseudo grizzly 
recurred to memory and furnished a good laugh, and the 
other was O. O. S., , the quizzical humorist, who hid 
tragic suf¥ering behind a jester's mask. Robinson cor- 
responded with O. O.'S., and has one letter written two 
days before the latter's death, which is as free from re- 
pining or self-commiseration as the moon is of green 
cheese. 
Of himself Mr. Robinson said little, and he took more 
interest in talking of what others had written than of 
his own stories of the old Yankee frontier life. In a 
general way I gathered that his first love had been for 
drawing and illustration, rather than writing, and that 
he had only taken up the pen when the pencil and brush 
Avere denied him. He js a natural story-teller, as any 
one who listens to him five minutes finds out, and his 
keen, natural observation, strengthened by artistic train- 
ing, has apparently gained in power indirectly through 
his misfortune.- The little touches in his descriptions of 
landscape or such a commonplace as the expression of 
berries falling in the basket in "Ras'berrying in Danyis" 
show the refinement of observation. 
Sam Lovel, Mr. Robinson says, is a creation and not 
a portrait, but the statement will .not make him any. 
the less a portrait to those who have known the fox- 
hunter and fisher on the Slang. 
Sam Lovel is a character with whom most sportsmen 
are acquainted, and to such the truth of the likeness is 
a source of neverrfailing pleasure. 
T arrived at the Robinson homestead before the family 
had risen from dinner, and was shown into the old- 
fashioned dining room, about which was that air of 
homeliness and hospitality that seems the special property 
of old houses. I had already dined, but was persuaded 
to take some bread and honey, and then some mushrooms 
but lo and behold ! when the time came the mushrooms 
were all gone. Mr. Robinson said the incident reminded 
him of the case of an old Quaker lady at whoSe house 
a visitor arrived cold and wet after a long drive. 
"Thee are cold and wet," said the old lady, "Thee 
needs spirits; won't thee have spirits? But we haven't 
any spirits in the house." 
As it turned out, however, the case wasn't a parallel. 
Some fresh mushrooms were put on and cooked and 
served up on toast, deliciously hot and appetizing, and' 
better than any I had ever eaten before. 
I happened to allude to the fact that Mr. Robinson 
was called Judge Robinson on the New York side of 
Lake Champlain, and the fact amused him greatly. "Thtse 
people over here don't appreciate me," he said, with a 
smile ; "they're more apt to call me Rowl, or any old nick- 
name, than Judge." 
"But aren't you a judgei?" I asked. - . 
"No," said "Robinson, "not that I know.of." 
■ Somp one ."suggested . that the: :title.; might have been 
given in an honorary way, and: thert . Mrs-.. '.Robinson's 
brother, wbo is an old-time. Colorado fron'tiersman, s.aid,, 
"Why. Rowland, you're a Justice of the Peace, aren't "you? 
In parts of New York State they call a justice Judge. 
You'd better move across the lak? and gr->t the benefit of 
your titlf," J, B. BiTRNHAM, 
