Feb 04, 2016 - Sale 2404

Sale 2404 - Lot 260

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(TRAVEL.) Belknap, Charles. Diary of the personal travels of a naval lieutenant throughout Asia. 9, 21-43, [67] manuscript diary pages. 8vo, original limp calf, moderate wear; a few leaves excised from end. Vp, 1 August 1876 to 19 January 1879
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Charles Belknap (1845-1901), a New Jersey native, kept this diary while in naval service, but it contains very little official business. He generally reserved the pages for his own recreational travels throughout Asia while on leave. He began this diary with a voyage to Nagasaki, Japan to join the fabled Civil War sloop USS Kearsarge in 1876. Their first mission was to accompany an American scientific team to Vladivostok to study the transit of Venus. There Lt. Belknap offers a long account of his personal trout-fishing expedition (9 September 1876). In 1877, he visited Swatow (Shantou), Amoy [Xiamen] and Luchau [Luzhou] in China. At one point, a sword swallower and juggler came aboard his ship, and he describes a theatrical performance at length (15 February 1877).
The diary stops for more than a year, during which he switches to an unknown ship, and resumes in July 1878 with a long visit to the delightfully named town of Obama, Japan. After six weeks, he was "called back by a note from the ship telling me she was ordered away, packed up & left the 5th greatly to my regret & to that of my hosts" (5 September 1878). His next adventure was an attempted ascent of Mount Fuji (18 September 1878). Other visits on this leg were to Hong Kong, Manila, and Bangkok.
During the period of this diary, he had a wife and two sons back home in Annapolis, MD, scarcely mentioned. He is perhaps most remembered today as a founder of the United States Naval Institute, which disseminates scientific knowledge. He eventually reached the rank of commander.