This Project Gutenberg Etext Prepared Down Under In Australia by:
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EVERYMAN, I WILL GO WITH THEE, & BE THY GUIDE
IN THY MOST NEED TO GO BY THY SIDE.
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In the "Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," edited by his son, Mr.
Francis Darwin (volume 3 page 188), the following passage occurs:—
"In the spring of this year (1874) he read a book which gave himgreat pleasure, and of which he often spoke with admiration, "TheNaturalist in Nicaragua," by the late Thomas Belt. Mr. Belt, whoseuntimely death may well be deplored by naturalists, was byprofession an engineer, so that all his admirable observations innatural history, in Nicaragua and elsewhere, were the fruit of hisleisure. The book is direct and vivid in style, and is full ofdescription and suggestive discussions. With reference to it myfather wrote to Sir J.D. Hooker: 'Belt I have read, and I amdelighted that you like it so much; it appears to me the best ofall natural history journals which have ever been published.'"
Now that the book so highly recommended by such an authority isabout to be introduced to a public which has hitherto only known itby hearsay, it will be interesting to inquire into the reason ofits appreciation by such men as Darwin and Hooker—and Lyell,Huxley, and Wallace, with other leaders of the scientific world ofthat day, might be quoted to the same effect—and to give someparticulars of the author's short active life.
The Belts were an old family which had been established at Bossalin Yorkshire since the reign of Richard II. The main line died outsome twenty years ago, but about the beginning of the eighteenthcentury a member of the family went to the Tyne to join thewell-known ironworks of Crawley at Winlaton. He and his descendantsremained with the firm for over a century, and he was thegreat-great-grandfather of the grandfather of Thomas Belt born atNewcastle-on-Tyne on November 27, 1832.
Thomas was the fourth child of a family of seven. His motherpossessed a singularly sweet and beautiful disposition; his father,much given to hobbies, was stern and unbending, and he himselfcombined an almost womanly gentleness with a quiet determinationthat unflinchingly faced all obstacles. With a high sense ofpersonal honour, unassuming and even-tempered, he was only rousedto anger by acts of oppression or wanton cruelty. Then hisindignation, though not loud, was very real, and he acted with apromptitude which would hardly have been expected from his usuallyplacid demeanour. A story is told of how one day sitting at tablehe saw through the window a man belabouring a woman. Without sayinga word, he rushed out, pinioned the offender by the elbows and,running him to the top of a steep slope in the street, gave him akick which sent him flying down the declivity. The incident isrecalled merely as an illustration of his practical way of dealingwith difficulties which stood him in good stead in many anout-of-the-way corner of the world when conte