At this juncture [of critical business affairs at Henderson],

the father of Audubon died; but for some unfortunate cause

he did not receive legal notice for more than a year. On

becoming acquainted with the fact he traveled to Philadelphia

to obtain funds, but was unsuccessful. His father had left

him his property in France of La Gibitère [Gerbetière], and

seventeen thousand dollars which had been deposited with a

merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Audubon, however, took no

steps to obtain possession of his estate in France, and in

after years, when his sons had grown up, sent one of them to

France, for the purpose of legally transferring the property

to his own sister Rosa. The merchant who held possession of

the seventeen thousand dollars would not deliver them up until

Audubon proved himself to be the son of Commodore Audubon.

Before this could be done the merchant died insolvent, and

the legatee never recovered a dollar of his money.[236]

[Illustration: AN OLD STREET IN THE COUËRON OF TO-DAY.]

[Illustration: "LES TOURTERELLES," COUËRON, FINAL HOME OF ANNE

MOYNET AUDUBON, AND THE RESTING PLACE OF EXACT RECORDS OF THE

NATURALIST'S BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE.]

A key to the origin of the fictitious seventeen thousand dollars

is probably to be found in the letters of Jean Audubon to Francis

Dacosta, written in 1805,[237] where he refers to certain unsettled

business claims against his former partners, Messrs. Formon and Ross,

who had been respectively interested with him in two vessels, _Le

Comte d'Artois_ and the _Annette_, the history of which has already

been noticed.[238] They were also engaged at a later time in certain

iron-works above Richmond, Virginia, but with these Lieutenant Audubon

was not directly concerned. Formon, his partner in Santo Domingo trade,

who was charged with having drawn $1,650 in excess of his share, had

died without making any final settlement of their accounts; another

associate, Edward, had died in London leaving an unsettled claim of

$300; while David Ross, who was owing a certain sum, had also died

without liquidating his debt. The amount of the latter claim probably

was not large, since Dacosta was instructed to use this sum for his

needs in developing the mine at "Mill Grove" should he be so fortunate

as to collect it; "when you receive my papers from Miers Fisher," said

Lieutenant Audubon in his letter of the 22d of June, 1805, "you will

find a promissory note of Mr. Samuel Plaisance of Richmond, for the

business of the widow Ross. If there were justice there this sum should

be paid to me with the costs."

Lieutenant Audubon was never able to collect these different amounts,

which probably did not much exceed $2,000, but an echo of one of these

transactions appeared as late as 1819, when Audubon's brother-in-law

sent him a document referring to the claim on the Ross estate, in

the hope that some money might still be forthcoming, writing as

follows:[239]

In turning over some letters I have found a letter of Mr.

David Rost [Ross], and a memorandum that I thought pointed to

what was referred to in it. As I have sometimes heard it said

that this Mr. David Rost owed a considerable sum, it should

be possible that this letter, which is in English, might be

of use to you. I cannot say anything about it, not knowing

your language, and not having ventured to get it translated,

from fear of compromising us, I am sending it to you, [and]

you will judge of its importance. Should chance will that it

bring you money, send me some of it, I beg you, for I am in

great need of it.

The same biographer whom we have just quoted said in reference to "La

Gerbetière": "This estate was left by Commodore Audubon to his son John

James, who conveyed it to his sister without even visiting the domain

he so generously willed away." We have now seen what provisions were

actually made for the disposition of this property under the terms of

the various wills of Lieutenant Audubon and his wife. We need only add

that not long after his father's death, the naturalist lost touch with

his family in France; his one-half interest in his stepmother's estate,

which was heavily encumbered, was never claimed, and at a much later day

was informally relinquished in favor of his sister and her family.

During his Henderson period Audubon was in communication with his

brother-in-law, Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau, who kept him informed in

regard to all that transpired in their French home; on July 26, 1817,

the naturalist had given him a power of attorney, the curious wording

of which has already been noticed.[240] Whether deterred by the legal

complications which soon followed, displeased by the mode of settlement,

or for what other cause now unknown to us, Audubon seems to have severed

all relations with his family at Couëron, or to have written to them

only after long lapses of silence. On New Year's Day, 1820, Gabriel du

Puigaudeau dispatched to him a friendly letter[241] of greeting:

I take the opportunity at the renewal of the year, to offer

you the good wishes of the entire family. Our every desire is

that you, your beloved wife, and dear children may be happy,

that you may prosper, that you may enjoy good health, and this

is the wish of your nieces also. But, awaiting the pleasure

of seeing you all, by what fatality during the past eighteen

months have I not had any news of you, why no reply to at

least twenty letters that I have written to you? Can I have

been so unfortunate that some one has given you any report

that would prejudice you against me? I do not believe that

there could exist any one who would be able to do this, at

least with truth; if some one has really sought to estrange

your friendship for me, act with frankness, and tell me your

suspicions. I do not believe it would be difficult to destroy

them, and I even promise that I would offer you no reproach

for having momentarily believed it, should this after all have

occurred. For what concerns our business affairs, I refer you

to my letters which have preceded this.

This letter was sent to Henderson, Kentucky, more than a year after the

naturalist had finally left that state; at the moment it was written he

was making his way down the Ohio River to New Orleans in a flatboat,

"the poorest man aboard," as he thought at the time. Writing in his

journal on December 26, 1820, when they had touched at Natchez, Audubon

said that on that day he had received letters from his wife, who was

then at Cincinnati, written on November 7 and 14, and that the last

"contained one from my brother, G. Loyen Dupuigaudeau, dated July 24,

1820." If the month in this instance was misnamed, this might have been

the following letter, which was written at Couëron on the twenty-fourth

of June, 1820, and sent to Henderson like the last.

Two years have passed without our having any news of you. What

a long lapse of time, and in what anxiety are we plunged!

In God's name give us some news about yourself, if it be

but a word to set us at rest in regard to your condition. I

should not know how to persuade myself that you were not on

friendly terms with me, since I have given you no cause [for

grievance]; if it is so, be generous enough to relieve me

from this anxiety. The business matters of Mr. Audubon are

at last concluded, and I await only the return of the papers

from Cayes to set them in order with justice [to all].[242]

Profiting by an opportunity for New York, I have only time to

refer to my letters of 15 September, 30 October, 19 December,

1818, 1st February, 15 April, 15 May, 3d August, 1819, in all

their contents.

Madam Audubon is coming to live with us; she found herself

isolated at "La Gerbetière," and was very dull there; I wish

that she may be contented here. She does not cease to speak

of you, and is as much astonished as I am that we receive no

news of you.

The naturalist's elder son, Victor, visited Couëron about the year

1835, when his cousin, Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau the second, who was

nearly of the same age, returned from military service to meet him.

He was disappointed at the appearance of his father's old home, "La

Gerbetière," which had not been occupied by the family for fifteen

years.[243]

Rosa Audubon du Puigaudeau, the naturalist's sister, died at "Les

Tourterelles" after August 3, 1842, leaving a daughter, Rose du

Puigaudeau, who died without issue, October 20, 1881, and, if we are

correctly informed, one son, Gabriel Loyen du Puigaudeau the second,

who died at "Les Tourterelles," Couëron, June 23, 1892, when past his

eightieth year; a daughter of this only son was married to Monsieur

L. Lavigne, notary at Couëron. At the time of her uncle's death, his

property, including the personal records of Lieutenant Jean Audubon,

passed into the hands of Madame Lavigne, who is a grand step-niece of

the naturalist, and who aside from her children, so far as known, is

the only surviving member of his family in France.

At this point we must examine a little more carefully the peculiar

status of what Audubon referred to as the "enigma" of his life. In some

of his private journals and letters[244] he dramatically declared that

a mystery had surrounded his early existence, which he was bound by a

solemn oath exacted by his father never to reveal, and that this secret

must be carried by him to the grave. If it be the duty of a biographer

to make the true character of his subject known, the passage of time

would now seem to sanction reference to many personal matters which a

century ago should have been more rigidly guarded. I enter upon this

task solely with the view of placing Audubon's character in a truer and

fairer light.

The essential facts regarding Audubon's birth and early years have now

been given, and this is the true, though possibly not the complete,

story. Anything which we now add, however, can be regarded as little

better than speculation. Audubon is said to have received through his

father a large sum of money from an unknown or unnamed source,[245]

but as such stories are apt to be exaggerated, especially when an

ocean intervenes between a testator and his heir, the statement may be

erroneous; we have seen that Lieutenant Audubon was not in a position

to make such gifts himself had he been so disposed. If the report were

true, the money may have come from the estate of his mother, and through

the agency of the mysterious "Audubon of La Rochelle," who is said to

have been a politician.[246] In some of the passages which we do not

quote, the naturalist would have his family believe that he was of noble

birth, that his adoptive father was not his true father, and that both

he and Lieutenant Audubon had received irremediable injury through the

treachery of the mysterious uncle, "Audubon of La Rochelle." Now these

strange statements of the naturalist, though not in accord with the

facts as they are known to us, should be interpreted, I believe, in the

light of possible stories that may have come to him in the glamour of

his youth; his mind may have been diverted by them, he may have believed

them, but of this nothing now can positively be known. To continue

our conjectures, it is possible that the plain conflict between these

supposititious tales and the facts that were revealed at his adoption,

his baptism, and in the wills of his father and stepmother, as well

as by the lawsuit which followed the former's death, all led him to

resort to "enigma." We should also remember that the naturalist, who

was careless of dates and historical facts, had finally left his home

at the age of twenty, when young men as a rule are not curious about

their family history, and that he reached the reminiscent stage late

in life. It seems probable that the wording of his father's will and

the later attempt to annul it finally induced him to wash his hands

of the whole matter, even to breaking off relations with his family in

France. Feeling, as undoubtedly he did, that public knowledge of those

conditions, for which he was in no way responsible, might be a bar to

all future aspirations, he was not loath to let the matter rest, so far

as he and his immediate family were concerned, under a cloak of mystery.

If such were in truth the case, I think few would find cause to blame

him.

When we view the whole subject in this double light, of a duty owed to

his family and of the possibility that conflicting stories had come to

him at an earlier day, any embroidery or confusion which appears in many

of his statements of a personal nature can be better understood. Such

an explanation would be quite convincing if payments had actually come

to him from his own mother's estate.

We will only add that Mrs. Audubon, who seemed to have shared her

husband's intimate thoughts, apparently believed to the last in his high

birth. When her younger son, John Woodhouse Audubon, lay at the point of

death, in February, 1862, she was summoned to his bedside, but reached

it too late to see him alive; upon entering the room Mrs. Audubon is

said to have exclaimed: "Oh, my son, my son! to think that you should

have died without having known the secret of your father's early life!"

When asked by members of her family to what she then referred, she

turned their questions aside, saying only that such remarks were common

in moments of intense grief and excitement.

CHAPTER XVIII

EARLY "EPISODES" OF WESTERN LIFE

Methods of composition—"A Wild Horse"—Henderson to

Philadelphia in 1811—Records of Audubon and Nolte, fellow

travelers, compared—The great earthquakes—The hurricane—The

outlaw—Characterization of Daniel Boone—Desperate plight on

the prairie—Regulator law in action—Frontier necessities—The

ax married to the grindstone.

Audubon's sketches of life and scenery in America, which he designated

as "Episodes," were interspersed in his _Biography_ of birds[247] to

brighten the narrative and beguile the reader. Extending to the number

of sixty, and dealing mainly with events between the years 1808 and

1834, they abound in tales of adventure and graphic pictures of pioneer

life which for their personal charm, local coloring, and human interest

are worthy of high praise. Some of these sketches have been copied

widely and some have been translated into Audubon's native tongue; some

have even found their way into schoolbooks. While they have deservedly

won the naturalist many readers, not a few have subjected him to harsh

criticism on the score of too vivid coloring or historical inaccuracy,

a fault to which he was particularly prone. Whenever Audubon went

directly to nature to exercise his pencil or brush or wrote with his

subject before him, he was truth itself, but in writing offhand and

from memory of past events he was wont to humor his fancy, disregarding

dates as readily as he did the accents on French words. This tendency is

particularly apparent in the accounts of some of his early adventures

in the western country, such as "Louisville in Kentucky" (1808-10),

"The Prairie" (1812), "A Wild Horse" (1811-13), and "The Eccentric

Naturalist" (1818), the history of which is detailed in the following

chapter. We shall examine some of these stories at this point, though

their composition belongs to a later period, in order to reach a

just conclusion in regard to the author's method, as well as for the

intrinsic interest of the narratives themselves.

During Audubon's early life in Kentucky, as we have seen, he frequently

visited the East, whether in the interest of birds or business,

traveling by way of the river and the forest roads. Incidents of these

journeys frequently occur in the "Episodes," but since dates commonly

are omitted and the order of events is liable to be blended or confused,

they cannot be trusted always for historical accuracy. Thus, "The Wild

Horse" episode[248] professes to be an account of a single journey from

Henderson, in Kentucky, to Philadelphia and back again, whereas some of

the events recorded occurred in reality at least two years apart, such

as the meeting with Nolte at the Falls of the Juniata River in December,

1811, and the naturalist's return from Pennsylvania with the proceeds

of "Mill Grove," which could not have been earlier than 1813, the date

of its sale to Mr. Samuel Wetherill, Junior.[249]

Audubon visited Philadelphia in November, 1811, and returned to Kentucky

in December of that year, but whether it was upon this or some other

journey that he rode a wild horse through seven states in going from

his home at Henderson to the Quaker city, or whether such a journey

ever occurred, is immaterial to the interest of the narrative. In this

instance, however, we have the advantage of comparing the notes of a

fellow traveler, Vincent Nolte, then a merchant at New Orleans.[250]

First to follow Audubon's account, as given in his "Episode," we are

told that he rode a wild mustang, named "Barro," that had never known a

shoe, having been recently captured near the headwaters of the Arkansas.

In going east he diverged from the beaten track to extend his knowledge

of the country and of its bird life. From Henderson he passed through

the heart of Tennessee to Knoxville, thence to Abington, the Natural

Bridge, and Winchester in Virginia, crossed the corner of West Virginia

to Harper's Ferry, then to Frederick, Maryland, and on through Lancaster

to Philadelphia; there, he said, he remained four days, and returned

by way of Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Zanesville, Chillicothe, Lexington and

Louisville, to Henderson. He estimated the whole distance traversed at

"nearly two thousand miles," and at a rate of "not less than forty miles

a day." Much is said in praise of his favorite bay horse, and its food

and daily treatment are duly recorded. This horse was very docile, and

would wade swamps, swim rivers, and clear a rail fence like an elk; corn

blades as well as corn and oats entered into his daily ration, to which

a pumpkin and fresh eggs, when procurable, were occasionally added.

It was upon his return journey that the naturalist met with Vincent

Nolte, who twelve years later did his chance acquaintance a good turn,

when the latter was about to sail for England in 1826.[251] Nolte, said

Audubon,

was mounted on a superb horse, for which he had paid three

hundred dollars, and a servant on horseback led another as

a change. I was then an utter stranger to him, and when I

approached and praised his horse, he not very courteously

observed that he wished I had as good a one. Finding that he

was going to Bedford to spend the night, I asked him what

hour he would get there: "Just soon enough to have some

trouts ready for our supper, provided you will join when

you get there." I almost imagined that Barro understood our

conversation; he pricked up his ears, and lengthened his pace,

on which Mr. Nolte caracolled his horse, and then put him to

quick trot, but all in vain; for I reached the hotel nearly a

quarter of an hour before him, ordered the trouts, saw to the

putting away of my good horse, and stood ready at the door to

welcome my companion. From that day to this Vincent Nolte has

been a friend to me.

Audubon added that they rode together as far as Shippingport, now a part

of Louisville, where his brother-in-law, Nicholas Berthoud, was then

living.

We shall now follow the equally circumstantial but widely divergent

account of this meeting and the subsequent journey as given by the

other traveler. Nolte had sailed from Liverpool in September, 1811,

and landed in New York after a perilous voyage of forty-eight days. He

had no servant, but was accompanied by a young Englishman, named Edward

Hollander, whom he had engaged in a business capacity while in London

and with whom he was making his way to New Orleans. Hollander had been

sent in advance to Pittsburgh to purchase two flatboats, for in addition

to their horses they had planned to carry 400 barrels of flour, from

the sale of which in the South they expected to defray the expenses of

their journey. Having purchased a fine horse in Philadelphia, Nolte

left that city in December, and with saddle-bags strapped to his

horse's back, rode on "entirely alone." He crossed the highest point

of the Alleghany ridge at ten o'clock of a winter's morning and later

in the same day reached a small inn "close by the Falls of the Juniata

River." "The landlady," to quote his narrative, "showed me into a

room, and said, I perhaps would not mind taking my meal with a strange

gentleman, who was already there." This stranger, who immediately struck

him as "an odd fish," "was sitting at a table, before the fire, with

a Madras handkerchief wound around his head, exactly in the style of

the French mariners, or laborers, in a seaport town." In the course

of the conversation which then ensued he declared that he was an

Englishman, but Nolte was the last person to be deceived on a question

of nationality and remarked at once that his speech betrayed him. "He

showed himself," to quote our senior traveler again, "to be an original

throughout, but at last admitted that he was a Frenchman by birth, and

a native of La Rochelle. However, he had come in his early youth to

Louisiana, had grown up in the sea-service, and had gradually become

a thorough American." When asked how this account squared with his

earlier statement, said Nolte, "he found it convenient to reply in the

French language: 'when all is said and done, I am somewhat cosmopolitan;

I belong to every country.' This man," to conclude, "who afterwards

won for himself so great a name in natural history, particularly in

ornithology, was Audubon, who, however, was by no means thinking, at

that time, of occupying himself with natural history."

In the interview as thus far recorded, Audubon was clearly chaffing

his new acquaintance, for not one of the statements attributed to him

was true, if we accept the fact of his French extraction. Nolte, to be

sure, writes as a somewhat vain and garrulous man, and after a lapse of

forty-three years, but he professes to speak the truth and there is no

reason to suppose that his narrative is pure invention. Nolte further

informs us that Audubon's father-in-law, Mr. Bakewell, "formerly of

Philadelphia," was "then residing and owning mills at Shippingport,"

which was not the case. To continue, finding that Audubon, who was

bound for Kentucky, was a companionable man and devoted to art, a field

which he had cultivated himself, Nolte proposed that they should travel

together, and offered the naturalist a berth on one of his flatboats.

He thankfully accepted the invitation, and we left Pittsburgh

in very cold weather, with the Monongahela and Ohio rivers

full of drifting ice, in the beginning of January, 1812.

I learned nothing further of his traveling plans until we

reached Limestone, a little place in the southwestern corner

of the State of Ohio.[252] There we had both our horses taken

ashore, and I resolved to go with him overland, at first to

visit the capital, Lexington, and from there to Louisville,

where he expected to find his wife and parents-in-law.... We

had hardly finished our breakfast at Limestone, when Audubon,

all at once, sprang to his feet, and exclaimed in French;

"Now I am going to lay the foundation of my establishment."

So saying, he took a small packet of address cards from his

pocket, and some nails from his vest, and began to nail up one

of the cards to the door of the tavern, where we were taking

our meal.

Later they rode on together as far as Lexington, where they appear to

have parted company.

The discrepancies between these accounts could hardly be greater, and

they serve to illustrate the liberties which Audubon sometimes took with

facts in composing his "Episodes." The travelers met, not on horseback,

but at the supper table of a country inn; Nolte was then alone and

had but one horse, while the greater part of the return journey was

made by flatboat with Audubon as his guest; corn blades, pumpkins and

trout suggest any other season than midwinter, with heavy snows on the

mountains and rivers choked with ice. Audubon in this instance, as

already explained, combined the incidents of two different journeys

and colored the narrative to suit his fancy. There was no apparent

motive to mislead the reader, and one of his readers he must have known

would probably be Vincent Nolte, though he was not a subscriber to _The

Birds of America_; Nolte did read the story, and was pleased with the

"flattering acknowledgment of the little service" that he was able to

render Audubon at that time as well as later in his career.

Both travelers felt the great earthquakes while making this journey, but

probably not until they had parted company at Lexington. Audubon has

given a vivid account of this experience in a characteristic sketch,

but as usual there are no dates.[253] He was overtaken, as he said,

while "traveling through the Barrens of Kentucky ... in the month of

November," when he thought his terrified "horse was about to die, and

would have sprung from his back had a minute more elapsed, but at that

instant all the shrubs and trees began to move from their very roots;

the ground rose and fell in successive furrows, like the ruffled waters

of a lake." For "November" he should have written "January" of the year

1812.[254]

This series of memorable earthquakes was followed in 1813 by a

hurricane, more terrific than destructive, which swept the lower part

of Henderson County, Kentucky, and cut a wide swath through the virgin

forests, without causing any loss of life. Audubon's account of this

event[255] is that of a close observer who escaped destruction by a

hair's breadth and who related only what he himself had experienced.

Critics inclined to be supercilious have complained that he exaggerated

the importance of a merely local event and stretched the course of the

storm some 800 miles until it had covered several states. "Sir," said

Waterton, in pointing a dart through Audubon to another target, "this

is really too much even for us Englishmen to swallow, whose gullets

are known to be the largest, the widest, and the most elastic, of any

in the world." What Audubon said was: "I have crossed the path of this

storm, at a distance of a hundred miles from the spot where I witnessed

its fury, and, again four hundred miles farther off, in the State of

Ohio. Lastly, I observed traces of its ravages on the summits of the

mountains connected with the Great Pine Forest of Pennsylvania, three

hundred miles beyond the place last mentioned. In all these different

parts, it appeared to me not to have exceeded a quarter of a mile in

breadth." Audubon was doubtless mistaken in his hasty inference that

marks of forest devastation observed at such widely separated points

were due to the same storm, but this would only illustrate a lack of

caution which he sometimes displayed.

A contemporary writer[256] declared that Audubon's account of "Mason,"

the outlaw, whose name we are told should be spelled "Meason," was

altogether fabulous; that he was not killed by a regulator party,

nor was his head stuck upon a tree in the way described.[257] The

same critic further discredited the naturalist's account of Daniel

Boone, whom he had characterized as follows:[258] "The stature and

general appearance of this wanderer of the western forests approached

the gigantic. His chest was broad and prominent; his muscular powers

displayed themselves in every limb; his countenance gave indication of

his great courage, enterprise, and perseverance." "Boone," said this

writer, "was under six feet high, probably not more than five feet,

ten inches, and of that round, compact build, which makes little show.

Though very active, he had the appearance of being rather slender and

did not seem as large as he really was." In the case of the outlaw,

Audubon no doubt retold a story that had passed from mouth to mouth, but

he later learned to be wary of second-hand information, which in matters

of natural history sometimes led him into more serious difficulties. In

his description of Boone there was no more apparent motive to deceive

than in the case of his own father, to whom his imagination had added

nearly half a foot in stature.[259]

When Audubon was returning from Ste. Geneviève in the spring of 1812,

an incident occurred in which, for the first time in the course of his

wanderings for upwards of twenty-five years, he felt his life to be

in danger from his fellow man.[260] Overtaken by night on the prairie,

he approached the hearth fire of a small log cabin, which at first was

mistaken for the campfire of some wandering Indians. On craving shelter,

he was admitted by a tall, surly woman in coarse attire, who displayed

both an evil eye and a repellent countenance; but she offered him a

supper of venison and jerked buffalo meat and bade him to make his bed

upon the floor. When she espied his gold watch and chain, her demeanor

suddenly changed and she asked to take them in her hand; she put the

chain around her brawny neck and by her manner betrayed every token

of covetous desire. Meanwhile, a young Indian stoic, who was nursing a

recent arrow wound, had been sitting in silence by the fire; though he

spoke not a word, he cast an expressive glance in Audubon's direction

whenever the woman's back was turned, and having drawn his knife from

its scabbard, expressed in pantomime what the confiding stranger might

eventually expect.

Audubon's suspicions were at last thoroughly aroused. He asked for his

watch, and under pretense of forecasting the weather, took up his gun

and sauntered out of the cabin; in the darkness outside he slipped

a ball in each of the barrels of his gun, scraped the edges of his

flints, renewed the primings, and returned with a favorable report

of his observations. Then laying some deer skins on the floor in a

corner and calling his faithful dog to his side, he lay down and to all

appearances was soon asleep. Presently sounds of approaching voices were

heard, and at length two sturdy youths, who were evidently the woman's

sons, appeared bearing a dead stag, which they had slung to a pole;

they asked at once about the stranger, and called loudly for whisky.

Audubon tapped his dog, who showed by eye and tail that he was already

alert. Observing that the whisky bottle was paying frequent visits to

the mouths of the trio, he hoped that they would soon be reduced to a

state of helplessness, but the woman was seen to take in her hands a

large carving knife and go deliberately outside to whet its edge on

a grindstone; then, calling to her drunken sons, she asked them to

settle the stranger and bade them do their bloody work without delay.

Audubon cocked both barrels of his gun, touched his dog again, and was

resolved to shoot at the first suspicious move. At this dramatic moment

the door suddenly opened and two burly travelers with rifles on their

shoulders entered the cabin. Audubon sprang to his feet, and welcoming

the strangers with open arms, lost no time in making known to them his

desperate position. No parley was necessary, for, said he, they were

regulators, who then and there took the law into their own hands. The

woman and her sons were promptly secured, bound, and left until morning

to sober off; they were then led into the woods and shot. "We marched

them into the woods off the road," said Audubon, "and having used

them as Regulators were wont to use such delinquents, we set fire to

the cabin, gave all the skins and implements to the young Indian, and

proceeded, well pleased, towards the settlements." Would you believe, he

added, that not many miles from where this happened, "and where fifteen

years ago, no habitation belonging to civilized man was expected,

and very few ever seen, large roads are now laid out, cultivation has

converted the woods into fertile fields; taverns have been erected, and

much of what we Americans call comfort is to be met with? So fast does

improvement proceed in our abundant and free country."

I have given a paraphrase of this "Episode" as a further illustration

of Audubon's tales of adventure. There is doubtless a certain amount

of invention, and it reads like the setting of a dime novel incident,

but we see no reason to doubt the substantial truth of either the

local coloring or the fact. In answer to the question of a recent

commentator,[261] "Did remote prairie cabins have grindstones and

carving knives?" we would reply that the knife and the ax have followed

man to the frontier posts of civilization everywhere, and without the

grindstone the ax is useless. As a concrete instance in point, compare

this minute entered in the Proprietors' Book of Records of Perrytown,

afterwards Sutton, New Hampshire,[262] for the third day of September,

1770: "Voted a grindstone of about 8 shillings to be sent up to

Perrystown, for the use of the settlers there"; the first settler had

entered that wilderness but three years before, and at the time this

vote was taken the number was five.

CHAPTER XIX

AUDUBON AND RAFINESQUE

The "Eccentric Naturalist" at Henderson—Bats and new

species—The demolished violin—"M. de T.": Constantine

Samuel Rafinesque (Schmaltz)—His precocity, linguistic

acquirements and peripatetic habits—First visit to America

and botanical studies—Residence in Sicily, and fortune

made in the drug trade—Association with Swainson—Marriage

and embitterment—His second journey to America ends in

shipwreck—Befriended—Descends the Ohio in a flatboat—Visit

with Audubon, who gives him many strange "new species"—Cost

to zoology—His unique work on Ohio fishes—Professorship

in Transylvania University—Quarrel with its president and

trustees—Return to Philadelphia—His ardent love of nature;

his writings and fatal versatility—His singular will—His sad

end and the ruthless disposition of his estate.

Audubon's humorous sketch of "The Eccentric Naturalist" has often been

quoted, and it presents a picture which is amusing, however short of

the truth it may fall or however it may fail in doing justice to its

subject. Though his real hero is not named, no doubt as to his identity

has ever been entertained. This episode occurred at Henderson in the

late summer of 1818, and was published thirteen years after in the

_Biography_ of birds.[263] Since the story was not fully told then and

the after-effects were productive of much harsh criticism, it cannot be

overlooked if we would do justice to both the writer and his subject.

When walking one day by the river, to follow Audubon's story, he saw

a man landing from a boat with what appeared like a bundle of dried

clover on his back; he concluded from his appearance that the stranger

must be "an original," a term which had been applied also to himself. A

meeting followed, and the stranger, who had inquired for Mr. Audubon's

house, explained that he was a naturalist, and had come to see Audubon's

drawings of birds and plants; he bore also a letter from a friend,

introducing "an odd fish" which might "prove to be undescribed." The

visitor was made welcome in Audubon's Henderson home, where, to quote

the naturalist,

at table his agreeable conversation made us all forget his

singular appearance.... A long loose coat of yellow nankeen,

much the worse of the many rubs it had got in its time,

and stained all over with the juice of plants, hung loosely

about him like a sac. A waistcoat of the same, with enormous

pockets, and buttoned up to the chin, reached below over

a pair of tight pantaloons, the lower parts of which were

buttoned down to the ankles. His beard was as long as I have

known mine to be during some of my peregrinations, and his

lank black hair hung loosely over his shoulders. His forehead

was so broad and prominent that any tyro in phrenology would

instantly have pronounced it to be the residence of a mind

of strong powers. His words impressed an assurance of rigid

truth, and as he directed the conversation to the study of

the natural sciences, I listened to him with as much delight

as Telemachus could have listened to Mentor.

All had retired for the night when of a sudden a great uproar was heard

in the visitor's room. To his great astonishment, Audubon found his

guest running about the apartment naked, holding the "handle" of his

host's favorite violin, the body of which had been battered to pieces

against the walls in the attempt to secure a number of fluttering bats

which had entered by an open window. "I stood amazed," said Audubon,

"but he continued jumping and running round and round, until he was

fairly exhausted, when he begged me to procure one of the animals for

him, as he felt convinced they belonged to 'a new species.' Although

I was convinced to the contrary, I took up the bow of my demolished

Cremona, and administering a sharp tap to each of the bats as it came

up, soon had specimens enough." Other incidents of this visit, which

Audubon said lasted three weeks, are fully recorded. The eccentric

naturalist collected an abundance of plants, shells, bats and fishes.

One evening he failed to appear, and after a prolonged search was

nowhere to be found; nor were the Audubons wholly assured of his safety

until some weeks later they received a letter with due acknowledgments

of their hospitality.

The "M. de T." of this episode was Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, in

many respects the most singular figure that has ever appeared in the

annals of American science. Although young in years, for Rafinesque was

then but thirty-five, he was already old in experience and that of the

bitterest sort; and although already known to many in both hemispheres,

he had few friends. It is certain that neither Audubon nor anyone else

in that part of Kentucky had ever heard of him before.

Born in Constantinople, of a father who was a French merchant from

Marseilles and of a mother with a German name who by nativity was Greek,

Rafinesque had known life in many lands, and was destined, as he said,

to be a traveler from the cradle to the tomb.[264] His first voyage,

made with his parents on their return to France, by way of Scutari

in Asia, Smyrna, and Malta, led to his first discovery, when he was a

year old, for he was able to announce that "infants are not subject to

sea-sickness." At eleven he read Latin and collected plants; at thirteen

he wrote his first scientific paper, "Notes on the Apennines," which he

had seen when traveling from Leghorn to Genoa. His father, who set out

for China in 1791, fell in with pirates, but managed to reach America;

he died of the yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793. To escape the

Reign of Terror in France, Rafinesque's mother fled with her children

to Italy, where four years were passed at Leghorn. There Constantine

studied with private tutors, but his education was never formal and he

was allowed to follow his omnivorous tastes, reading, as he said, ten

times more than was taught in the schools. His writings are mainly in

French, Italian, and English, and his facility with languages was no

doubt remarkable, even if we discount his egotized estimate of his own

attainments: "I have undertaken to read the Latin and Greek, as well as

the Hebrew, Sanskrit, Chinese, and fifty other languages, as I felt the

need or inclination to study them."

In 1802 Rafinesque was sent with his brother to America and became a

shipper's, clerk at Philadelphia, where he spent all of his spare time

in the study of nature, plants being his first and greatest love. Here

he was befriended by Dr. Benjamin Rush, and during this period he made

the acquaintance of many pioneer naturalists in the United States.

In 1805 the offer of a lucrative situation in Sicily lured him back

to the Old World and to a country already known to him. There he soon

discovered the medicinal squill, of ancient repute and thought to be

an antidote, which in the form of syrup was long the bane of childhood;

this and other medicinal drugs he exported to the European and American

markets in such quantities that before the secret of his trade became

known to the jealous Sicilians, he had reaped from it, in conjunction

with his other enterprises, a small fortune. During the ten years that

were spent in Sicily we find him the manager of a successful whisky

distillery, the chancellor or secretary of the American Consulate

at Palermo, editor, writer, and correspondent of learned men in

Europe, as well as traveler and explorer in every part of the island,

which he proposed to monograph with all of its contents. At Palermo

Rafinesque met the English naturalist, William Swainson, his lifelong

correspondent; together they tramped over the island and together they

worked for a number of years on the fishes of the western coast.[265]

Swainson, who became the friend of Audubon, was one of the few who later

defended Rafinesque.

Rafinesque espoused a Sicilian woman of the Catholic faith, and had by

her two children, of whom a daughter lived to maturity; this experience

seems to have embittered him against the sex, for no other woman

excepting his mother, to whom his _Life of Travels_ was dedicated, was

ever mentioned in his writings, and this one was disinherited in his

extraordinary will. Through fear of being drafted into the French wars,

he assumed for a time his mother's family name of Schmaltz, and finally

left Sicily in disgust; taking with him his fortune and "fifty boxes

of personal goods," he set out again for America in 1815. Sicily, he

declared in epigram, offered "a fruitful soil, a delightful climate,

excellent productions, perfidious men, deceitful women."

This second voyage to the New World began late in July but did not end

until 100 days later, when, on the night of November 2, his ship ran on

the Race Rocks near New London, at the western end of Long Island Sound,

and eventually went down within sight of land with all his possessions.

"I had lost everything," he said, "my fortune, my share of the cargo, my

collections and labors for twenty years past, my books, my manuscripts,

my drawings, even my clothes ... all that I possessed, except some

scattered funds, and the insurance ordered in England for one third of

the value of my goods." "I have found men," he continued, "vile enough

to laugh without shame at my misfortune, instead of condoling with me!

But I have met also with friends who deplored my loss, and helped me in

need." One of these friends was Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell of New York, who

had given a helping hand to Audubon,[266] and it was probably through

him that Rafinesque obtained a position as private tutor in a family

living on the Hudson. Traveling up and down the country, collecting

objects in natural history, writing, with frustrated attempts at

business, occupied a number of the following years; meanwhile he had

aided in founding the Lyceum of New York and had become a member of the

Literary and Philosophical Society. At Philadelphia he found another

friend in Mr. John O. Clifford, of Lexington, Kentucky, who encouraged

him to visit the West, and in the spring of 1818 he descended the Ohio

in an "ark" in company with several others who had joined him in the

enterprise. At Shippingport he was welcomed by the Tarascon brothers,

flour merchants, formerly of Marseilles and Philadelphia, and it was

through them, possibly, that he first heard of Audubon's drawings of

birds.

Such was the "odd fish" who a little later greeted Audubon on the river

bank at Henderson. Had Audubon known the true history of his visitor

either then or at a later time, he would not, we believe, have held

him up to ridicule in the "Episode" quoted above, and could he have

foreseen the unpleasant consequences that ensued, his conduct would

assuredly have been different. A part of the episode, which Audubon

does not relate, was supplied by another naturalist at a much later

day.[267] Audubon, it seems, was at that time a good deal of a wag,

and whether to vent his dislike of species-mongers, to avenge the

loss of his violin, or to gratify some spirit of mischief, he played

upon the credulity of his guest, in a way that could be deemed hardly

creditable, in giving him detailed descriptions and even supplying him

with drawings of sundry impossible fishes and mollusks. Rafinesque took

the bait eagerly, duly noted down everything on the spot, and, what was

more unfortunate for American zoölogy, a year later began to publish

the results. The fictitious species of fish, to the number of ten,

"communicated by Mr. Audubon," first appeared as a series of articles

in a short-lived and long forgotten western magazine,[268] but in 1820

they were gathered into a little volume [269] now considered so quaint

and rare that it has been reproduced in its entirety. In this pioneer

work on the ichthyology of the Ohio River and the great Middle West,

111 kinds of American fresh-water fishes are briefly described. Those

ten "new species," representing apparently a number of new genera, "so

like and yet so unlike to anything yet known," long remained a stumbling

block to American zoölogists; naturally they tended to discredit the

work of Rafinesque.

[Illustration: EARLY UNPUBLISHED DRAWINGS OF AMERICAN BIRDS:

ABOVE, "L'ALCION D'AMERIQUE SEPTENTRIONALE BUFFON. KING

FISHER. CHUTE DE L'OHIO JULY 15, 1808. BELTED KING FISHER

A. W.-J. A. ALCEDO ALCION. DRAWN BY J. J. AUDUBON. NO. 110;"

BELOW, "PASSENGER PIGEON—A. W. COLUMBA MIGRATORIA. CHUTE DE

L'OHIO. DECEMB. 11, 1809. 12 PENNES À LA QUEUE TRES ÉTAGEE.

APPELÉ ICI WILD PIGEON. J. AUDUBON. NO. 109."

Published by courtesy of Mr. Joseph Y. Jeanes.]

As a specimen of these spurious fish stories, which were previously

published in both America and Europe, we reproduce a part of

Rafinesque's description of the "91st. Species. Devil-Jack Diamond-fish.

Litholepis adamantinus":

This may be reckoned the wonder of the Ohio. It is only

found as far up as the falls, and probably lives also in the

Mississippi. I have seen it, but only at a distance, and have

been shown some of its singular scales. Wonderful stories are

related concerning this fish, but I have principally relied

upon the description and figure given me by Mr. Audubon. Its

length is from 4 to 10 feet. One was caught which weighed

four hundred pounds. It lies sometimes asleep or motionless

on the surface of the water, and may be mistaken for a log

or a snag. It is impossible to take it in any other way than

with the seine or a very strong hook, the prongs of the gig

cannot pierce the scales which are as hard as flint, and even

proof against lead balls! Its flesh is not good to eat. It is

a voracious fish: Its vulgar names are Diamond fish, (owing

to its scales being cut like diamonds) Devil fish, Jack fish,

Garjack, &c.... The whole body covered with large stone scales

laying in oblique rows, they are conical, pentagonal, and

pentædral with equal sides, from half an inch to one inch in

diameter, brown at first, but becoming of the colour of turtle

shell when dry: they strike fire with steel! and are ball

proof!

While we cannot defend Audubon in his treatment of Rafinesque, it

would be hardly fair to judge such incidents wholly in the light of

after events, for, as our narrative will show, it is unlikely that

he ever saw Rafinesque or heard of him again until long years after

this incident, certainly not until after his "Episode" was published

in 1831.[270] Rafinesque evidently enjoyed this sketch of himself,

for he gave unstinted praise to the work in which it was published.

As late as 1832, when the appearance of _The Birds of America_ seems

to have stimulated him to even more grandiose conceptions of his own

merits than was usual, he declared that his discoveries were counted by

the thousand, and that he had traveled twenty thousand miles, always

collecting and drawing. In view of the fact that drawing was a talent

which nature had unequivocally denied him, it is interesting to read

this boast that an unfriendly critic drew forth: "My illustrations of

30 years' travels, with 2,000 figures will soon begin to be published,

and be superior to those of my friend Audubon, in extent and variety,

if not equal in beauty. I shall study and write as long as I live, in

spite of all such mean attempts against my reputation and exertions,

trusting in the justice of liberal men."[271]

After leaving Audubon at Henderson in the summer of 1818, Rafinesque

passed down the Ohio into the Mississippi, pausing only to pay his

respects at the famous communistic settlement of New Harmony, by

the mouth of the Wabash in Indiana, then the abode of Thomas Say,

David Dale Owen, and Charles Le Sueur, all of whom have left bright

and honored names in the annals of American science. He eventually

returned to Philadelphia by way of Lexington, Kentucky, where he was

induced to settle and teach natural history and the modern languages

in the Transylvania University, at that time the most important seat

of learning in the West. After closing up his business affairs in

Philadelphia, Rafinesque entered upon his new labors at Lexington in

the autumn of 1819. He was probably the first teacher of these subjects

west of the Alleghanies, and certainly the first in that section of

the country to use the present object method in the elucidation of

natural history. The lot of a pioneer in education has never been a

sinecure, and the post which Rafinesque then filled was not a "chair"

but a hard "settee." In those days the classics were in the saddle and

"rode mankind," while the natural sciences, when tolerated at all, were

given short shrift; yet this eccentric foreigner held his position for

seven years and accomplished an extraordinary amount of work. As usual

he spread his energies over the whole field of knowledge, lecturing,

writing and publishing on almost every subject, but concentrating upon

none. Meanwhile, he roamed far and wide and made extensive collections.

While at the Transylvania University Rafinesque seems to have applied

for the master of arts' degree, but was at first refused, as he said,

"because I had not studied Greek in a college, although I knew more

languages than all of the American colleges united, but it was granted

at last; but the Doctor of medicine was not granted, because I would

not superintend anatomical dissections."

One of his many projects, as meritorious as it was impractical, at that

time, was a Botanic Garden with a Library and Museum for Lexington,

which was then but a small village; though land was actually secured and

a start in tree planting begun, the project of course came to nothing

and had to be abandoned. Rafinesque also invented, as he believed, the

present coupon system of issuing bonds, the "Divitial Invention," as

he called it; in 1825 he set out for Washington in order to secure his

patent rights, but his journey and idea never brought him any returns.

On the contrary, the incident marked the culmination of his troubles

with the president of the University and its governing board, whom he

seems to have constantly nettled by his independent ways and roaming

habits. Upon returning from Washington he found that Dr. Holley, who,

he said, "hated and despised the natural sciences" and wished to drive

him out altogether, had broken into his rooms during his absence, and

had "given one to the students, and thrown all my effects, books and

collections in a heap in the other," besides depriving him of certain

other privileges. "I took lodgings," he continued, "in town and carried

there all my effects; thus leaving the college with curses on it and

Holley; who were both reached by them soon after, since he died next

year at sea of the yellow fever, caught at New Orleans; having been

driven from Lexington by public opinion; and the College has been burnt

in 1828 with all its contents."

After this unpleasant experience Rafinesque returned to Philadelphia,

where he spent the last and saddest part of his checkered career. His

insistent ideas, which were undoubtedly the index of an unbalanced

mind, increased, especially his mania for describing "new species"

of animals and plants; this mania perverted everything that he wrote,

especially toward the end of his life, and made him a thorn in the side

of every naturalist who tried to verify his work. A non-conformist and

a respecter of no authority but his own is never popular, though a part

of the antagonism which Rafinesque aroused was due to the conservatism

of his age. He boldly advocated organic evolution when almost the whole

world believed that species were fixed and unchangeable things, and in

many other respects was fifty years ahead of his time; but nothing was

ever carefully worked out in his fertile mind, with the consequence that

the world paid no heed to his crude and undigested ideas.

The great mass of Rafinesque's books and monographs, his "tracts,"

broadsides, and ephemeral papers of all sorts, extending to nearly

a thousand titles, must have gone into paper rags, when not used to

kindle fires, for he was generous in their distribution, and they are

now exceedingly rare. He touched nearly everything, it is true, but

little that he touched, especially in this later period of his life,

did he ever truly ornament. His best pioneer work, in the opinion of

competent students, was that done upon the fishes of Sicily and the

natural history of the Ohio Valley; his _Medical Flora_, in two volumes

(1828 and 1830), is also admitted to have possessed real value; but his

writings are now sought after as literary or scientific curiosities,

and as such they are unique.

No doubt Rafinesque was often treated unjustly, either through ignorance

or intent, while many naturalists were exasperated by the barbed arrows

which he shot into the air or direct at the mark. Others through sheer

inability to follow him gave up the attempt, one writer[272] saying

that such an attitude was justified when it appeared that he had made

six species out of one, not to speak of several different genera and

two sub-families. If anyone still believes that Rafinesque has been

misjudged, says Günther,[273] let him read his letters to Swainson,

from 1809 to 1840, fifty-three in number, covering 178 closely written

quarto or folio pages, now in possession of the Linnæan Society of

London. "Rafinesque," continues this critic, "was a man deeply to be

commiserated, not merely on account of the unfortunate circumstances

which left him in his youth to himself, without teacher or guide, but

still more on the ground of that natural disposition by which his

universal failure in life was brought about. He was possessed of a

feverish restlessness which entirely disqualified him from serious study

of any of the multitudinous subjects which attracted his mind in rapid

succession."

Rafinesque, bereft of friends and fortune, unknown even to his

neighbors, by whom he seems to have been regarded as a harmless herb

doctor, was left to struggle on alone, without recognition and without

sympathy or support. Reduced finally to abject poverty, he concocted

and sold medicines which were advertised much like quack remedies at the

present day, especially his "Pulmel," which without a doubt he thought

had cured him of the pulmonary consumption. To advertise this he wrote

a little treatise, hoping to realize something from its sale and at the

same time to avoid any undue appearance of empyricism.

Toward the very end of his life, Rafinesque projected a savings bank,

and, strangely enough, this seems to have been a success, though just

how is not clear, since it both borrowed and loaned money at six per

cent. He had already attempted to secure rights on a "steam-plough," a

"submarine boat," "incombustible houses," and similar novelties which

abler inventors have later perfected. For a long time he led the life of

a perfect recluse in a garret in a poor quarter of Philadelphia, in the

midst of his collections, his books and his manuscripts, never the world

forgetting but ever by the world forgot. There, in the direst misery, he

died in 1840, at the age of fifty-six, without a word of cheer or a tear

of regret. His body was barely saved from the dissecting table and given

decent burial through the loyalty and promptitude of one of his few

remaining friends, Dr. William Mease, who with undertaker Bringhurst,

broke into the room where his body lay and let it down through a window

by ropes.[274] Even his will was ruthlessly violated, and all of his

effects, in eight dray-loads, were hurried off to the public auction

rooms and sold in bargain lots, his books and all else bringing but a

mere pittance, not even enough to pay his landlord and the administrator

of his estate.

Thus died the "eccentric naturalist" whom Audubon had portrayed, and

for whom the world in general had shown scant sympathy. Rafinesque,

nevertheless, possessed a mind of extraordinary acumen and an energy

and versatility little short of marvelous. He dipped into every field

of knowledge, looking for precious metal, but much that he brought to

the surface was dross. His restless versatility alone would probably

have ruined him, for nothing short of an analysis of the globe with

all of its contents would have satisfied his ambitious spirit. His was

the ardor of the traveler and the explorer, with a passionate love for

nature seldom equaled, but without the incentive and the patience of

the investigator or a balance-wheel in the judgment. His ambition in

early life was to become the greatest naturalist of his age; had his

early training and environment been suited to his needs, and had fortune

favored him more consistently with her smiles, this ambition possibly

might have been realized, but we suspect that in this case nature

would have proved stronger than nurture, and that he would have been

Rafinesque to the end.

CHAPTER XX

AUDUBON'S ÆNEID, 1819-1824: WANDERINGS THROUGH THE WEST AND SOUTH

Pivotal period in Audubon's career—His spur and

balance-wheel—Resort to portraiture—Taxidermist in the

Western Museum—Settles in Cincinnati—History of his

relations with Dr. Drake—Decides to make his avocation his

business—Journey down the Ohio and Mississippi with Mason and

Cummings—Experiences of travel without a cent of capital—Life

in New Orleans—Vanderlyn's recommendations—Original

drawings—Chance meeting with Mrs. Pirrie, and engagement

as tutor at "Oakley"—Enchantments of West Feliciana—"My

lovely Miss Pirrie"—The jealous doctor—Famous drawing of

the rattlesnake—Leaves St. Francisville and is adrift again

in New Orleans—Obtains pupils in drawing and is joined by

his family—Impoverished, moves to Natchez, and Mrs. Audubon

becomes a governess—Injuries to his drawings—The labors

of years destroyed by rats—Teaching in Tennessee—Parting

with Mason—First lessons in oils—Mrs. Audubon's school at

"Beechwoods"—Painting tour fails—Stricken at Natchez—At the

Percys' plantation—Walk to Louisville—Settles at Shippingport.

Audubon's failure at Henderson was the crucial turning point in

his career. For the five years that immediately followed he led a

peripatetic existence in the southern and western states, seldom

tarrying long at one point, often leaving his family for months at

a time, living from hand to mouth, but ever bent on perfecting those

products of his hand and brain, his life studies of American birds and

plants.

At this crisis Audubon could have accomplished nothing but for the

intelligent devotion of his capable wife. Generous, emotional, inclined

to be self-indulgent, Audubon needed both the example and the spur of

a strong character such as his wife possessed, and at this time Lucy

Audubon furnished both the motive power and the balance-wheel that were

requisite for the development of her husband's genius. Without her

zeal and self-sacrificing devotion the world would never have heard

of Audubon. His budding talents eventually would have been smothered

in some backwoods town of the Middle West or South. For the space of

nearly twelve years, Mrs. Audubon, now as the head of a small private

school, now as a governess in some friendly family who appreciated

her worth, practically assumed the responsibility for the support and

education of their children in order that her husband's hands might be

free, and with her hard-earned savings was able to aid him materially

in the prosecution of his labors. When relatives or friends upbraided

him for not entering upon some form of lucrative trade, she recognized

his genius and always came to his support, being fully persuaded that he

was destined to become one of the great workers of the world. Whatever

others may have said or done at that time, both Audubon and his wife

were confident of the ultimate success of his mission. In short, the

work in which the naturalist was engaged became a family interest, in

which every member was destined sooner or later to bear a part.

Audubon recalled a somber incident of this time which he thought might

furnish a lesson to mankind, and he shall relate it in his own words:

After our dismal removal from Henderson to Louisville, one

morning when all of us were sadly desponding, I took you

both, Victor and John, from Shippingport to Louisville. I had

purchased a loaf of bread and some apples; before you reached

Louisville you were hungry, and by the river side we sat down

and ate our scanty meal. On that day the world was with me

as a blank, and my heart was sorely heavy, for scarcely had

I enough to keep my dear ones alive; and yet through those

dark days I was being led to the development of the talents

I loved, and which have brought so much enjoyment to us

_all_....

At Shippingport Audubon was welcomed by his brother-in-law, Nicholas

A. Berthoud. Wasting no time in vain regrets, he began doing portraits

in crayon, and with such success that he was able to rent a modest

apartment and have his family about him again. From no charges for his

tentative efforts the price was gradually raised until he received five

dollars or more a head; with the spread of his fame orders filled his

hands, and he was called long distances to take likenesses of the dying

or even of the dead. Audubon's facility in portraiture was a valuable

resource, and it kept him from the starving line at many a pinch in

later years.

Through the influence of friends the naturalist was offered a position

as taxidermist at a museum which had just been started at Cincinnati;

here his family joined him in the winter of 1819-20, and here he

remained for nearly a year. The published accounts of this Cincinnati

experience are strangely confused and have led to aspersions of bad

faith which were, we believe, quite undeserved. "I was presented," said

Audubon, "to the president of the Cincinnati College, Dr. Drake, and

immediately formed an engagement to stuff birds for the museum there,

in concert with Mr. Robert Best, an Englishman of great talent," adding

that his salary was large; so industrious were they, to continue his

account, "that in about six months we had augmented, arranged, and

finished all that we could do," but they found to their sorrow "that

the members of the College museum were splendid promisers and very bad

paymasters."[275] It has been stated that Audubon got nothing from

Dr. Drake, but that "Mrs. Audubon afterwards received four hundred

dollars, of the twelve hundred due," and that the remainder was never

paid.[276] This matter can now be fully cleared up, and it will appear

that the Cincinnati College was in no way involved; Dr. Drake was not

its president, although he drew its charter and was one of its trustees;

the Museum in which the naturalist worked was an independent foundation;

and Mrs. Audubon was probably paid in full for the service which her

husband had rendered.

Audubon wrote in his journal in 1820, when this experience was fresh in

his mind, that owing to his talent for stuffing fishes he entered the

service of the Western Museum at a salary of $125 a month; he made no

complaint at that time of any lack of pay. Moreover, on the day before

he started on his cruise down the Ohio River on the 11th of October of

that year, the Rev. Elijah Slack gave him a letter of introduction in

which he said that Audubon had "been engaged in our museum for 3 to 4

months, and that his performances do honor to his pencil." Since Mr.

Slack, like Dr. Drake, was one of the managers of the Western Museum,

he must have known of Audubon's term of service. We are convinced

that Dr. Daniel Drake,[277] whose character was above reproach and who

was a keen naturalist himself, was Audubon's good friend, and that no

misunderstanding ever rose between them. In writing offhand from memory,

years after the events, Audubon misstated the facts but evidently

without design.

In 1818 Dr. Drake organized the Western Museum Society, of which he

said: "I have drawn up the constitution in such a manner as to make

the institution a complete school for natural history, and hope to

see concentrated in this place, the choicest natural and artificial

curiosities in the Western Country." The first meeting of the Society

was held in the summer of 1819, not long before Audubon was engaged to

work for it. The membership fee was $50, a considerable sum for that

period, but the enterprise was well patronized. It was in charge of a

board of whom Dr. Drake was the moving spirit; another member, as we

have seen, was Rev. Mr. Slack, who became the first president of the

Cincinnati College, which was organized in 1818-19. The collections of

the Museum were placed in one of the buildings of the College in order

better to serve the students and public, which would account for some

of the confusion noted above.

Dr. Drake's hands at this time were more than full; in October, 1819, he

wrote to a friend: "The ties which bind me to the world at large seem

every day to increase in strength and numbers. The crowd of mankind

with whom I have some direct or indirect concern, thickens around me,

and I see little prospect of more leisure, nor any of retirement and

seclusion." At this juncture also, when Audubon and Best were working

for his Museum, Dr. Drake was experiencing the first disastrous check in

his energetic career. In January, 1820, in spite of the opposition and

intrigue of professional rivals, he succeeded in organizing the Medical

College of Ohio, and Robert Best became the assistant in chemistry and

the curator of the Western Museum. Opposition did not abate, but instead

of strangling the College which he had founded, the marplots succeeded

in expelling the Doctor from its staff. At last, feeling obliged to

leave the city, Dr. Drake accepted in 1823 a position in the rival

medical school of Transylvania University, and thus became a colleague

of Constantine Rafinesque. It will be seen that Audubon's engagement at

Cincinnati fell in a troubled era, and the annoyance which he may have

felt at lack of pay was probably no fault of the harassed doctor.

While at Cincinnati Audubon was obliged to resort to his crayon

portraits; and he also started a drawing school, but it required all of

Mrs. Audubon's skill in management to keep the family out of debt. In

1820 he began for the first time seriously to consider the possibility

of publishing his drawings, and under the spur of this incentive began

to exert himself as never before. He planned a long journey through

the Middle West and South, his intention being to descend the Ohio and

Mississippi Rivers, explore the country about New Orleans, and then

proceed as far east as the Florida Keys; he wished also to ascend the

Red River, cross Arkansas, and visit the Hot Springs, before returning

again by river to Cincinnati. Lack of ready money was no drawback, for

he was now confident of being able to live by his talents alone.

Accordingly, he left his wife to care for their two boys, and on October

12, 1820, started down river in a flatboat, bound for New Orleans. His

companions on this journey were Captain Cummings,[278] an engineer

who had been in the government service, to whom Audubon became much

attached; Joseph R. Mason, a promising artist of eighteen, in the _rôle_

of pupil-assistant, and his dog "Dash." Although Audubon had no funds,

he was careful to provide himself with letters to or from men of mark

who could be of assistance to him and this custom was followed to good

effect at a much later day. On this occasion he bore recommendations

from William H. Harrison, who afterwards became President, to Governor

Miller of Arkansas, and from Henry Clay, as well as his letter from Rev.

Elijah Slack, in which it was stated that the naturalist was traveling

to complete his collection of the birds of the United States which he

intended to publish at some future time. Audubon also wrote a personal

letter to Governor Miller, fully outlining his plans, and asking for

information; he told the Governor that he had been working fifteen

years, and that his drawings of birds and plants were all from nature

and life-size, showing that the idea of publication which was afterwards

realized was then fixed in his mind. Audubon kept a careful journal on

this journey, which extended over a year, the last entry being for the

close of 1821.[279]

As their flatboat stopped at many towns and plantations on the rivers,

Audubon could hunt game and birds to his heart's content. Having

resolved, as he said, never to draw from a stuffed specimen, he

worked at every new bird with the greatest diligence. It seems almost

incredible that he should never have met with the Hermit Thrush before

this journey, yet under date of "Oct. 14, 1820," there is this entry:

"We returned to our boat with a Wild Turkey, a Telltale Godwit and a

Hermit Thrush, which was too much torn to make a drawing of it; this

was the first time I had met with this bird, and I felt particularly

mortified at its condition."[280]

Their visit to Natchez furnished Audubon with materials for at least two

of his "Episodes."[281] This incident of his generosity may be taken as

characteristic; finding that one of his companions was down at the heel

and as short of ready money as himself, he sought out a shoemaker and

offered to do a portrait of the man and his wife for two pairs of boots;

the proposal was accepted forthwith, and he set to work; the sketches

were finished in the course of two hours, and Audubon and his companion,

having selected their boots, went on their way rejoicing.

Audubon left Natchez on December 31, 1820, on a keel boat belonging

to his brother-in-law, Nicholas A. Berthoud, who accompanied him, and

at one o'clock the steamer _Columbus_ hauled off from the landing and

took them in tow. Towards evening, when they were looking up their

personal belongings, the naturalist found to his dismay that a portfolio

containing all of the drawings that he had made on the voyage down

the river was missing. Letters were despatched to Natchez friends,

but it was not until the 16th of March that his anxiety was relieved;

the missing portfolio had been found and left at the office of _The

Mississippi Republican_, whence it was forwarded on his order, and

reached his hand on the 5th of April. "So very generous had been the

finder of it," he said, "that when I carefully examined the drawings in

succession, I found them all present and uninjured, save one, which had

probably been kept by way of commission."

On New Year's Day, 1821, they came to at Bayou Sara, at the mouth of the

inlet of that name, which later saw much of Audubon and his family. On

the following day he made a likeness of the master of their craft, Mr.

Dickenson, for which he was paid in gold; he also outlined two warblers

by candle-light in order to have time to finish them on the morrow.

The captain of their steamer in his anxiety to make haste had set them

adrift at this point, and they were obliged to make their way as best

they could, by aid of the current and oars, to the port of New Orleans,

which was finally entered on Sunday, January 7, 1821.

Audubon landed at New Orleans without enough money to pay for a night's

lodging, for someone had relieved him of the little he possessed, and he

was obliged to pass several nights on the boat while looking for work.

Undismayed by his financial straits, his first visit at daybreak on

Monday was to the famous markets of the southern city, where he found

dead birds exposed for sale in great numbers—mallard, teal, American

widgeon, Canada and snow geese, mergansers, tell-tale god-wits, and even

robins, bluebirds and red-wing blackbirds; he added that the prices were

very dear.

Upon leaving Cincinnati Audubon had resolved upon making one hundred

drawings of birds; this was actually accomplished, but only after

repeatedly modifying his plans and working in more humble capacities

than he was at first inclined to consider. On the 12th of January

he wrote in his diary of meeting an Italian painter at the theater,

and of showing him his drawing of the White-headed Eagle[282] at

the rooms of Mr. Berthoud; "he was much pleased," and took him "to

his painting apartment at the theater, then to the directors, who

very roughly offered me one hundred dollars per month to paint with

Monsieur l'Italien. I believe really now that my talents must be poor,"

said Audubon. His refusal of this offer in view of his straitened

circumstances, and the entry which followed, were characteristic: "Jan.

13th, 1821. I rose up early, tormented by many disagreeable thoughts,

again nearly without a cent, in a bustling city where no one cares a

fig for a man in my situation." The following day Audubon applied to

a self-taught portrait painter, John W. Jarvis, and after showing his

drawings, was engaged to assist him in finishing the "clothing and

ground"; but this artist's manners were declared to be so uncouth and

the pay so poor that he left him in disgust.

When he had made a hit, as he said, with the likeness of a well known

citizen, orders came to him, and he was able to resume his drawing of

birds. On February 22 he recorded that he had spent his time in "running

after orders for portraits, and also in vain endeavors to obtain a sight

of Alexander Wilson's 'Ornithology,' but was unsuccessful in seeing

the book, which is very high priced." Later, however, he appears to

have succeeded in this quest, for on the 17th of that month he was able

to send his wife twenty drawings of birds, eight of which were marked

as "not described by Willson." Among them were the originals of some

of the most famous of his plates, such as the Great-footed Hawk, the

White-headed Eagle, and the Hen Turkey.[283] Having seen in a newspaper

a notice of an expedition which the Government was about to send to the

Pacific Coast, to survey the boundary of the territory that had been

recently ceded by Spain, Audubon became much excited over a possible

appointment as draughtsman and naturalist. He sat down at once and wrote

a personal letter to President Monroe, while hundreds of imaginary birds

of new and interesting kinds seemed to come within the range of his gun;

on the 31st of March he was still pondering on the project, and although

it is not likely that his letter ever reached the eye of the President,

he did receive a recommendation from Governor Robertson of Louisiana.

It was with this expedition in view that he sought an interview with

John Vanderlyn,[284] an eminent painter of historical subjects, then

working in New Orleans; according to one version Vanderlyn treated him

as a mendicant, and ordered him to lay down his portfolio in the lobby,

but ended by giving him a very complimentary note, in which he praised

his drawings without stint, particularly his studies of birds.

During the five months spent at New Orleans in 1821, Audubon attempted

to support himself and his companion by means of their artistic talents,

while he was pushing forward his ambitious design of figuring all of

America's birds and most characteristic plants. That he received scant

encouragement but many rebuffs is not surprising. They did succeed in

obtaining a few pupils in drawing, and Audubon made a number of rapid

portraits, but after living for a time on Ursuline Street, near the

old Convent, and later shifting from one quarter to another, their

finances had reached so low an ebb by the beginning of June that a move

was imperative. Audubon then decided to go to Shippingport, Kentucky,

and on the 16th of June, with young Mason, he again boarded the steamer

_Columbus_, John D'Hart, captain, and started up river. An incident now

occurred which affected the naturalist's whole after life by introducing

him to one of the most favored spots in Louisiana, if not in the whole

country, for the study of bird life, not to speak of the impressions

which the charm of new scenery, a rich flora, and natural products

of the most varied description must have then made on his mind. Mrs.

James Pirrie, wife of a prosperous cotton planter of West Feliciana

Parish, happened to be their fellow-passenger. Doubtless her curiosity

was piqued by the winning manners and flowing locks of the artistic

traveler, whose Gallic accent at once betrayed his nationality. Whether

Audubon had made her acquaintance previous to this journey or not is not

known, but before it was ended his fine enthusiasm and ambitious plans

had found a sympathizer, and he was engaged as tutor to Mrs. Pirrie's

daughter at $60 a month. To further his ornithological pursuits it

was understood that he and his companion should live at "Oakley," her

husband's plantation, five miles from St. Francisville, on Bayou Sara,

and that one-half of his time should be absolutely free for hunting and

drawing. Thus, on June 18, 1821, was forged the link that bound the

heart of Audubon to the State which was first in his affections, and

which he would fain believe might have been the scene of his nativity.

Well may the Louisianians of today adopt him as their son, for from that

early time he cherished their State as in a peculiar sense his own.

It was a hot and sultry day when our wanderers landed at Bayou

Sara,[285] a small settlement at the junction of the sluggish stream

which bears that name and the Mississippi, and proceeded to climb to

St. Francisville, the village a mile away on the hill. Mrs. Pirrie,

who seems to have preceded the travelers by carriage, sent some of

her servants to relieve them of their luggage, which Audubon said they

found light. They rested in the village at the house of Mr. Benjamin

Swift, where they were invited to stay to dinner, then at the point

of being served, but feeling somewhat ill at ease, they thanked their

host and again took to the road. Following their leisurely guides,

they now traversed a country so new, so strange, and so enchanting,

that the five miles to the Pirrie house seemed short indeed. "The

rich magnolias, covered with fragrant blossoms, the holly, the beech,

the tall yellow poplar, the hilly ground, and even the red clay," to

quote Audubon's record made at the time, "all excited my admiration.

Such an entire change in the face of nature, in so short a time, seems

almost supernatural, and surrounded once more by numerous warblers and

thrushes, I enjoyed the scene."

[Illustration: BAYOU SARA LANDING, WEST FELICIANA PARISH,

LOUISIANA, AT THE JUNCTION OF BAYOU SARA AND THE MISSISSIPPI

RIVER.]

[Illustration: SCENE ON BAYOU SARA CREEK, AUDUBON'S HUNTING

GROUND IN 1821.

This and the above after photographs by Mr. Stanley Clisby

Arthur, 1916.]

In passing up the Mississippi from New Orleans, the topography of the

country suddenly changes at about this point; in the parish of West

Feliciana the alluvial lowlands of the river valley give place to

beautiful highlands, which still harbor as rich and distinctive a flora

and fauna as in Audubon's day. Following Audubon's course in June,

1916, or ninety-five years later, Mr. Arthur found the region about St.

Francisville wonderfully rich in birds, and there noted seventy-eight

resident kinds which were seen on the same day, from shortly before noon

to seven o'clock in the evening.

Upon reaching the plantation house, Audubon and his companion were

kindly received by the Scotchman, James Pirrie, who introduced to them

his daughter, Eliza, then a beautiful and talented girl of seventeen—"my

lovely Miss Pirrie, of Oakley," as Audubon once characterized her in

his journal—who was to become his pupil in drawing, and who, as after

events proved, was destined to a romantic and checkered career.

The "Oakley" house, which by a strange turn of fortune's wheel thus

became the naturalist's home in the summer of 1821, has changed but

little since that time, but the century that has nearly sped its course

has added strength and beauty to the moss-hung oaks which now encompass

it and temper the heat of the southern sun in the double-decked

galleries which adorn its whole front. Built of the enduring cypress,

as my correspondent remarks, the house stands as firm and sound as the

gaunt but living sentinels of that order which tower from the brake not

far away.

Audubon spent nearly five months at the Pirrie estate. He worked with

great ardor at his _Ornithology_ and produced the originals of many

of his plates that were afterwards published, while his assistant,

Joseph Mason, who had followed him from Cincinnati, labored with

equal diligence at the plants that were chosen as a setting for the

birds.[286] An early drawing of the Chuck Will's Widow is dated "Red

River, June, 1821," and it is probable that he followed this stream into

Arkansas, for on leaving Cincinnati in the autumn of the previous year,

he had planned to enter that State, and later references in his journals

clearly imply that this object was attained. Another favorite hunting

ground was Thompson's Creek, and he often recalled its heated banks,

where, on a Fourth of July, he once satisfied his hunger by "swallowing

the roasted eggs of a large soft shelled turtle."

On August 11, 1821, while Audubon was living at "Oakley," he made this

entry in his journal:

Watched all night by the dead body of a friend of Mrs. P——; he

was not known to me, and he had literally drunk himself to an

everlasting sleep. Peace to his soul! I made a good sketch of

his head, as a present for his poor wife. On such occasions

time flies very slow indeed, so much so that it looked as if

it stood still, like the hawk that poises over its prey.

In the same journal also, for August 25, occurs a record which throws

light on one of Audubon's most discussed and questionable pictures, that

of the mocking-birds defending their jessamine-embowered nest from the

sinister designs of a rattlesnake;[287] little did he think at the time

how much discord this venomous reptile, when coiled in the branches of

a tree, could later breed.[288] The entry was:

Finished drawing a very fine specimen of a rattlesnake, which

measured five feet and seven inches, weighed six and a quarter

pounds, and had ten rattles. Anxious to give it a position

most interesting to a naturalist, I put it in that which the

reptile commonly takes when on the point of striking madly

with its fangs. I had examined many before, and especially

the position of the fangs along the superior jaw-bones, but

had never seen one showing the whole [of the fangs] exposed

at the same time.

He then described the generous provision which nature has made to keep

the rattlesnake in fighting trim, by giving it a dental arsenal on which

it can draw in case of loss; he added that the heat of the day was such

that he could devote only sixteen hours to the drawing.

At this time Audubon was a handsome and attractive man; his pupil, who

did not enjoy the best of health, was attended by a young physician

who was also her lover. It is not surprising therefore to learn that

jealousy on the part of the doctor led to a misunderstanding, and that

the naturalist suddenly made his departure and returned to New Orleans.

In recording this incident Audubon could not repress his amusement at

the prescription of the physician, who ordered the young lady to abstain

from all writing and drawing for a period of four months, but meanwhile

permitted her to eat anything which pleased her fancy, in spite of the

relapses of fever that occasionally occurred. Audubon was allowed to see

her only at appointed hours, as if, he said, he were an extraordinary

ambassador to some distant court, and was obliged to preserve the utmost

decorum of manner; he expressed the belief that he had not once laughed

in the presence of the young lady during the entire term of his tutorial

engagement, which lasted from the 18th of June to the 21st of October.

Later, in December of the same year, when his former pupil passed him

without recognition in the streets of New Orleans, he indulged in the

reflection that she had apparently quite forgotten the great pains

with which at her own request he had done her portrait in pastels, but,

thanks to his talents, he thought that he could run the gauntlet of the

world without her help.[289]

At New Orleans Audubon soon found new pupils, particularly through

the aid of Mr. R. Pamar and Mr. William Braud,[290] who came to his

assistance, Mrs. Braud and her son paying him at the rate of three

dollars for a lesson of one hour. On November 10, 1821, he wrote:

Continued my close application to my ornithology, writing

every day, from morning until night, omitting no observations,

correcting, re-arranging from my notes and measurements, and

posting up; particularly all my land birds. The great many

errors I found in the work of Wilson astonished me. I try to

speak of them with care, and as seldom as possible, knowing

the good will of that man, and the vast many hearsay accounts

he depended on.

[Illustration: ROAD LEADING FROM BAYOU SARA LANDING TO

THE VILLAGE OF ST. FRANCISVILLE, WEST FELICIANA PARISH,

LOUISIANA.]

[Illustration: "OAKLEY," JAMES PIRRIE'S PLANTATION HOUSE NEAR

ST. FRANCISVILLE.

This and the above after photographs by Mr. Stanley Clisby

Arthur, 1916.]

Again, on the 25th of that month is this entry:

Since I left Cincinnati I have finished 62 drawings of birds

and plants, 3 quadrupeds, 2 snakes, fifty portraits of all

sorts, and the large one of Father Antonio,[291] besides

giving many lessons, and I have made out to send money to

my wife sufficient for her and my Kentucky lads, and to live

in humble comfort with only my talents and industry, without

_one cent_ to begin on. I sent a draft to my wife, and began

to live in New Orleans with forty-two dollars, health, and

much anxiety to pursue my plan of collecting all the birds of

America.

The close of the year 1821 found Audubon teaching a few pupils at New

Orleans, where, he said, his style of work and the large prices he

received caused him the ill will of every artist in the city. The figure

which he cut in the streets, with his loose dress of nankeen and long,

flowing locks, made him wish to appear like other people, and he was

soon able to rejoice in a new suit of clothes. Though still in need of

work, when he was asked to aid in painting a panorama of New Orleans,

he refused, begrudging the time, saying that he did not wish to see any

other perspective than that of the last of his drawings.

Having been from home for over a year, Audubon now wished to have his

family about him again.[292] His plan did not appeal to his practical

wife, who had many friends at Cincinnati, where she was assured of a

good income through her teaching; Mrs. Audubon also felt that to be

constantly shifting about was anything but favorable to the education of

their children. Her reluctance, however, gave way, and in December she

joined her husband in New Orleans, but only to find that the city could

afford them no settled means of support. The situation of the Audubon

family during the winter of 1821-22 became precarious in the extreme,

and for two months Audubon gave up his habit of journalizing, one reason

being that he could not afford the paltry sum necessary to buy a blank

book for this purpose.

Compelled at last to make a new move, Audubon started for Natchez, on

the 16th of March, 1822, paying for his passage on the steamer _Eclat_

by doing a crayon portrait of the captain and his wife. It was while

going up the river at this time that he opened a chest containing two

hundred of his drawings to find them sadly damaged by the breaking of a

bottle of gunpowder, but the loss then sustained was apparently slight

in comparison with that which he had experienced in an earlier disaster.

To follow his account of this earlier and better known incident, when

leaving Henderson for Philadelphia, he carefully placed all of his

drawings in a wooden box and entrusted them to the care of a friend,

with injunction that no harm should befall them; upon returning several

months later, his treasure chest was opened, but only to reveal that "a

pair of Norway rats had taken possession of the whole, and had reared

a young family amongst the gnawed bits of paper, which but a few months

before represented nearly a thousand inhabitants of the air." The heat

that was immediately felt in his head, said the naturalist, was too

great to be endured, and the days that followed were days of oblivion

to him; but upon recuperation he took up his gun, his notebook and

his pencils, "and went forth to the woods as gaily as if nothing had

happened"; after a lapse of three years his portfolio was again filled,

and the earlier work replaced by better. Audubon's drawings and plates

were also repeatedly ravaged by fires, but this was at a much later day.

While Audubon was engaged in teaching French, music, or drawing, now to

private pupils at Natchez, now in a school at Washington, Mississippi,

nine miles away, the summer of 1822 passed with the outlook as ominous

as ever. On August 23 he wrote: "My friend, Joseph Mason, left me

today, and we experienced great pain at parting. I gave him paper and

chalks to work his way with, and the double barrelled-gun ... which I

had purchased in Philadelphia in 1805." Mason, who, for a year and nine

months, was Audubon's aid and constant companion, seems to have settled

eventually as an artist in Philadelphia, where we hear of him in 1824

and again in 1827.[293]

In the following December Audubon received a fresh impetus towards the

goal of his ambition by the arrival at Natchez of a traveling portrait

painter, named John Stein, who gave him his first lessons in the use

of oils; his initial attempt was the copy of an otter from one of his

own drawings. Audubon and Stein together later painted a full-length

portrait of Father Antonio which was sent to Havana. Artists who have

worked long in one medium are not always successful in another, but

those who have seen some of Audubon's later and better works in oil,

such as his large canvas of the Wild Turkeys,[294] must admit that he

attained a high degree of skill. As will be seen, this acquisition was

a strong string to his bow; when in England his brush helped largely to

pay for the issue of his early plates.

Mrs. Audubon, who joined her husband in New Orleans on December 8, 1821,

soon felt obliged to seek employment. She engaged as nurse or governess

in the family of Mr. Braud, presumably the same whose wife and son had

received instruction in drawing from the naturalist the previous autumn,

and remained with that family until September, 1822, when the death

of the child that was placed in her charge left her free to follow her

husband to Natchez. After attempting a similar position in the home of

a clergyman there and finding it impossible to obtain her salary, in

January, 1823, she was invited by the Percys to West Feliciana,[295]

then a prosperous cotton district, at the apex of the salient made by

the neighboring state of Mississippi and bordered on two sides by the

great river. Her worth was evidently appreciated, for she was encouraged

to establish a private school on the Percys' plantation, which she

conducted successfully for five years.

Captain Robert Percy, who before coming to America in 1796 had been an

officer in the British Navy, was living at this time with his wife and

five children at their plantation of "Weyanoke," on Big Sara Creek,

fifteen miles from St. Francisville; this town, owing to its large

shipments of cotton, was then at the height of prosperity, and its

population no doubt exceeded that of the present day; it now stands at

about one thousand souls. Letters and journals of the period constantly

refer to "Beechwoods," which was not the mansion house, though it

undoubtedly belonged to the Robert Percy estate. There it was that

the wife of the naturalist lived, and there she started her school,

for the benefit not only of the Percy boys and girls, but also of a

limited number of children of their wealthy neighbors; her own son,

John Woodhouse Audubon, then eleven years of age, at this time received

instruction at her hands. The parish of West Feliciana, at this early

period, was one of the richest cotton-producing sections of the entire

State; its care-free planters led an easy life until the "king" was

unceremoniously dethroned by a small, but not insignificant insect which

has proved mightier than either fire or sword, namely, the boll-weevil;

now many a fine old estate which has languished under the influence of

the pest could probably be bought for a song. "Beechwoods," thus devoted

to educational purposes, later came into the hands of Thomas Percy, but

the house, like that of "Weyanoke," was long since burned to the ground.

While Mrs. Audubon was establishing her rules and authority at the

Percy school, the naturalist was painting with Stein at Natchez, and

he remained there with his elder son until the spring of 1823. At this

period he wrote in his journal: "I had finally determined to break

through all bonds, and follow my ornithological pursuits. My best

friends solemnly regarded me as a madman, and my wife and family alone

gave me encouragement. My wife determined that my genius should prevail,

and that my final success as an ornithologist should be triumphant."

In March, 1823, Audubon and friend Stein bought a horse and wagon, and

in the hope of raising money through their joint efforts as itinerant

portrait painters, set out with Victor on a tour of the Southern States.

This venture, however, did not succeed, and after visiting Jackson and

a number of other towns, they disbanded at New Orleans. Audubon then

started north with his son for Louisville, but upon paying a visit

to his wife at the "Beechwoods" school, he was invited by the Percys

to remain there for the summer and "teach the young ladies music and

drawing." According to a tradition which has survived among the Percy

descendants, Audubon spent most of his time in roaming through the

woods, but he also taught his wife's pupils to swim in the large spring

house at "Weyanoke," where the water could be deepened at pleasure. It

was also said that he painted the Wild Turkeys in the woods of Sleepy

Hollow near by, but I have already given Audubon's own record in regard

to one of these pictures, and, as Mr. Arthur remarks, the places in

Louisiana where he drew these famous subjects are as numerous as the

beds in which Lafayette slept when at New Orleans.

Audubon remained with the Percys during the greater part of the summer,

or until some misunderstanding arose, when he was again adrift and upon

a sea of difficulties. While visiting a plantation near Natchez, both

he and Victor were stricken with fever; his faithful wife hastened to

them, and after nursing both back to health, she returned with them to

the Percy plantation, where they remained from the 8th to the 30th of

September.

In the autumn of 1823 Audubon was determined to visit Philadelphia,

in the hope of finding a sponsor for his "Ornithology." Although the

work was then far from ready for publication, he felt that at least

he might better his condition, and with this end in view he sent his

drawings from Natchez to that city; a hasty visit was made also to

New Orleans, for the purpose, no doubt, of obtaining credentials to

possible patrons in the East. At last, on October 3, he started with

Victor on the steamer _Magnet_[296] for Louisville. Low water quickly

held them up after entering the mouth of the Ohio, and they were obliged

to disembark at the little village of Trinity, at the mouth of Cash

Creek, the scene of Audubon's misadventures with Rozier thirteen years

before. The remoteness of the situation and the state of their funds,

which corresponded with that of the river, left no alternative but to

walk, and they undertook to reach Louisville, several hundred miles

distant, afoot. Two other travelers joined them, and with Victor, then

a lad of nearly fourteen, the party left the creek at noon on October

15 and struck across country through the forests and canebrakes. At

Green River, which was reached on the 21st, Victor gave out from sheer

exhaustion,[297] and the remainder of the journey was finished in

a Jersey wagon. At length, said Audubon, "I entered Louisville with

thirteen dollars in my pocket." At Shippingport, then an independent

town at the Falls of the Ohio, he was obliged to settle down for the

winter. A place for Victor was found in the counting-house of Nicholas

A. Berthoud, while the father undertook anything that came to hand,

painting portraits, landscapes, panels for river boats, and even street

signs, so hard pressed was he at times to eke out a subsistence for them

both. Yet Audubon was as sanguine as ever, and on November 9 he recorded

the resolution "to paint one hundred views of American scenery," and

added: "I shall not be surprised to find myself seated at the foot of

Niagara," a prediction which was fulfilled in the following year.

During the winter spent at Shippingport, Audubon lost a gentle friend in

Madame Berthoud,[298] the mother of Nicholas. In his journal for January

20, 1824, we read his emotional words:

I arose this morning by the transparent light which is the

effect of the moon before dawn, and saw Dr. Middleton passing

at full gallop towards the white house; I followed—alas!

my old friend was dead!... many tears fell from my eyes,

accustomed to sorrow. It was impossible for me to work; my

heart, restless, moved from point to point all round the

compass of my life. Ah Lucy! what have I felt to-day! ...

I have spent it thinking, thinking, learning, weighing my

thoughts, and quite sick of life. I wished I had been as quiet

as my venerable friend, as she lay for the last time in her

room.

CHAPTER XXI

DÉBUT AS A NATURALIST

Audubon makes his bow at Philadelphia—Is greeted with

plaudits and cold water—Friendship of Harlan, Sully,

Bonaparte and Harris—Hostility of Ord, Lawson and other

friends of Alexander Wilson—A meeting of academicians—Visit

to "Mill Grove"—Exhibits drawings in New York and becomes a

member of the Lyceum—At the Falls of Niagara—In a gale on

Lake Erie—Episode at Meadville—Walk to Pittsburgh—Tour of

Lakes Ontario and Champlain—Decides to take his drawings

to Europe—Descends the Ohio in a skiff—Stranded at

Cincinnati—Teaching at St. Francisville.

In 1824 after five hard years of struggle and embarrassment, Audubon

decided that the time had come to bring his labors to the light of day.

At thirty-nine, he read and spoke two languages but was without adequate

training in either; he had never written a line for publication, and to

the scientific world he was a stranger. Though without a definite plan,

he cherished the ardent hope of presenting the birds of his beloved

America as he had depicted them, to the size of life, and with all the

added interest and zest that a natural environment could give them.

To Philadelphia the naturalist now turned his steps, for that city

was then a Mecca for scientific men. Leaving Shippingport in March,

he reached the Quaker capital on the fifth day of April. There he

purchased a new suit of clothes, and, dressed "with extreme neatness,"

paid his respects to Dr. William Mease, the one friend there whom he

had known intimately in his younger and more prosperous days. It was

primarily through this excellent man's interest that Audubon met the

leading artists and scientific men of the city, including Thomas Sully,

Robert and Rembrandt Peale, Richard Harlan, Charles Le Sueur, and

Charles L. Bonaparte, the latter then a rising young ornithologist of

one and twenty. It was Bonaparte who introduced Audubon to the Academy

of Natural Sciences, where his drawings were exhibited and generally

admired. Among his critics on that occasion was George Ord, who from

their first interview seems to have looked upon the new luminary with

jealous eyes. Whether this was true or not, there is no doubt that Ord

became one of his few really bitter and implacable adversaries, and not

many days elapsed before Audubon came to feel that many in Philadelphia

would be glad to see him return to the backwoods of the Middle West,

from which, like an apple of Sodom, he seemed suddenly to have dropped

into their midst. Those who were most interested in the continued sale

and success of Wilson's _Ornithology_, he declared, advised him not to

publish anything, and threw not only cold water but ice upon all his

plans. Thus began that unseemly rivalry, fostered for many years by

George Ord in this country, between the friends of Alexander Wilson and

those of John James Audubon, the dead embers of which are occasionally

stirred even to this day.[299]

Ord, who was about Audubon's own age, was a quiet, persistent, and

unassuming worker, held in high esteem by many of his associates.

Audubon seems to have done his best to conciliate him then and at a

later day, but all to no purpose; Dr. Harlan once advised him to give

up the attempt, since Ord, he declared, had no heart for friendship,

having been denied that blessing by nature herself. Ord, as we have

seen, had edited the eighth and written the ninth, or concluding, volume

of Wilson's _American Ornithology_, as well as a life of its author;

the appearance of a new star in the ornithological horizon may not have

been a welcome sight. At all events, we soon find him engaged upon a

new edition of Wilson's work.[300] Ord had objected to Audubon's method

of combining plants and other accessories with his drawings of birds,

a criticism that in the case of purely technical works could be easily

sustained, and some of his later charges, though carried too far, were

not wholly without foundation.[301]

Bonaparte,[302] on the other hand, was captivated by Audubon's drawings

and anxious to secure his services for his own work, then well in hand.

This was the _American Ornithology_, for which Titian R. Peale was then

making the drawings, and Thomas Lawson, who had been Wilson's engraver,

was engaged on the plates; though quite distinct in itself, this was

much in the style of Wilson's earlier work, of which it was virtually a

continuation. When Bonaparte introduced Audubon to these men, it is not

surprising that the meeting was not productive of the best of feeling on

either side. Peale's stiff and rather conventional portraits of birds

naturally failed to awaken enthusiasm in "the trader naturalist," as

some who looked upon him as a rival rather contemptuously called him.

The interview with Lawson, if correctly reported by his friend,[303]

shows that his interest could not have been of the most disinterested

sort. "Lawson told me," said this reporter, "that he spoke freely of

the pictures, and said that they were ill drawn, not true to nature,

and anatomically incorrect." Thereupon Bonaparte defended them warmly,

saying that he would buy them and that Lawson should engrave them. "You

may buy them," said the Scotchman, "but I will not engrave them ...

because ornithology requires truth in the forms, and correctness in the

lines. Here are neither." Other meetings are said to have followed, but

to have ended only in mutual dislike. Nevertheless, one of Audubon's

drawings was engraved by Lawson and appeared in Bonaparte's work,[304]

but most of the figures in Bonaparte's concluding volumes were by the

hand of a German named Alexander Rider. It was doubtless a fortunate

circumstance that the prejudice and obstinacy of this overbearing Scot

was a bar to any further absorption of Audubon's talents.[305]

Audubon met at this time a more appreciative engraver in Mr. Fairman,

who urged him to take his drawings to Europe and have them engraved in

a superior style; on July 12 the naturalist wrote that he had drawn

"for Mr. Fairman a small grouse to be put on a banknote belonging to

the State of New Jersey." By some lucky chance this incident brought

him the acquaintance of Edward Harris,[306] whom he met that summer in

Philadelphia, and who became one of his most constant and disinterested

friends. It was Harris who a few days after their meeting took all

of the drawings which Audubon had for sale and at the artist's own

prices;[307] who for years was continually sending him rare or desirable

specimens of birds; who accompanied him through the Southern States to

Florida in 1837 and on the famous Missouri River Expedition in 1843.

Edward Harris became a patron of science through his friendship with

scientific men, and many besides Audubon were indebted to him for

judicious advice as well as more substantial benefits.

[Illustration: AN EARLY LETTER TO EDWARD HARRIS, DATED JULY

14, 1824 AT THE BEGINNING OF THEIR LIFE-LONG FRIENDSHIP.

From the Jeanes MSS. Audubon's last letter to Edward Harris,

from the same source, is reproduced in Volume II, page 287.]

The Academy of Natural Sciences, founded in 1812, was well established

at this time, and its rapidly growing Museum was already the largest

and most valuable in the New World; ornithology was a favored subject,

and the Academy's roll embraced every American pioneer worker of note

in the entire field of the natural sciences. The following account of

a meeting of the Academy, held on October 11, 1825, when Ord presided,

has been preserved in a letter of the period:[308]

A few evenings since I was associated with a society of

gentlemen, members of the Academy of Natural Sciences. There

were present fifteen or twenty. Among the number were Le

Sueur, Rafinesque, Say, Peale, Pattison, Harlan, and Charles

Lucien Bonaparte.

Among this collection life was most strikingly exemplified: Le

Sueur, with a countenance weather-beaten and worn, looked on,

for the muscles of his ironbound visage seemed as incapable

of motion, as those on the medals struck in the age of Julius

Cæsar. Rafinesque has a fine black eye, rather bald and black

hair, and withal is rather corpulent. I was informed that

he was a native of Constantinople; at present he lives in

Kentucky. Dr. Harlan is a spruce young man.... Peale is the

son of the original proprietor of the Philadelphia Museum,

and one who visited the Rocky Mountains with Major Long;

he is a young man, and has no remarkable indications of

countenance to distinguish him. Say, who was his companion in

the same expedition, is an extremely interesting man; to him

I am particularly obligated for showing me their Museum and

Library. I think he told me that their society had published

nine volumes.... Bonaparte is the son of Lucien Bonaparte

and nephew to the Emperor Napoleon; he is a little set,

black-eyed fellow, quite talkative, and withal interesting

and companionable.

Among the working naturalists at Philadelphia Dr. Richard Harlan was

possibly one whose friendship was most valuable to Audubon; the artist

from whom he received most encouragement was Thomas Sully, the portrait

painter, who took him into his studio and gave him lessons in the use

of oils. Sully was one of those who saw the good side of Audubon's

character, discerned his talent, and predicted for him a great future;

at a later day Sully was able to rejoice in finding his prediction amply

fulfilled.[309]

Convinced that the advice which Fairman and Bonaparte had given him was

sound, Audubon decided to look to Europe for a publisher of his _Birds_,

and with this end in view, set hard to work at his drawings. "I had

some pupils offered," he said, "at a dollar per lesson; but I found the

citizens unwilling to pay for art, although they affected to patronize

it. I exhibited my drawings for a week, but found the show did not pay,

and so determined to remove myself." Audubon remained in Philadelphia

until August, and while in doubt as to what step he should take next,

he was cheered by a visit to "Mill Grove," made in the carriage of his

Quaker friend, Reuben Haines. To quote his journal:

As we entered the avenue, which led to the farm, every

step brought to my mind the memory of past years, and I was

bewildered by the recollections until we reached the door of

the house, which had once been the residence of my father as

well as of myself. The cordial welcome of Mr. Wetherill, the

owner, was extremely agreeable. After resting a few moments,

I abruptly took my hat and ran wildly to the woods, to the

grotto where I first heard from my wife that she was not

indifferent to me. It had been torn down, and some stones

carted away; but raising my eyes towards heaven, I repeated

the promise we had mutually made. We dined at Mill Grove, and

as I entered the parlor I stood motionless for a moment on

the spot where my wife and myself were forever joined.

In this dramatic rehearsal the naturalist clearly implies that he was

married in the parlor of his own home, but his excellent wife, who was

surely in this instance the better authority, explicitly states that

their marriage took place in her father's house at "Fatland Ford." Since

Audubon was in the habit of sending extracts from his journal to his

family, it is clear that errors of this sort were the simple result

of an impulsive temperament; the moment his imagination pictured his

wedding as having taken place in his old abode, down went the jotting

in the journal, which was written at odd moments anywhere, often at late

hours, and with no care in revision or thought of future publication.

On August 1, 1824, Audubon recorded in his diary that he had left

Philadelphia for New York on the day before, "in good health, free

from debt, and free from anxiety about the future." Sully had given

him glowing letters of introduction to Gilbert Stuart, Washington

Allston and Colonel Trumbull, but then as now midsummer was not a

propitious time to find city people at home, and he began to consider

the advisability of visiting both Albany and Boston. Alternately elated

or depressed by the prospects of the day or the hour, Audubon wrote

on August 4 that he had called with a letter of introduction on Dr.

Mitchell, who had given him "a kind letter to his friend Dr. Barnes."

This hurriedly penciled note from the Nestor of American science of that

day has been carefully preserved, and reads as follows:[310]

_Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell to Dr. Barnes_

Mr. A. who brings strong testimonial of excellence from our

friends in Pha is now sitting with me—I have been delighted

and instructed by a Display of his Port Folio containing

Drawings Done from Life of North American Birds and

illustrating the Connect, of ornithology with Botany. he has

Superior attainments & skill in the natural sciences which he

has cultivated for more than 20 y.

he wishes to show his Elegant performances to the Members of

the Lyceum and to be made a Member of that Society—it is his

intention to Leave this City for Boston on Sunday morning.

Meanwhile I recommend him to your good offices.

Yours Truly as ever

SAM, L. MITCHELL

Aug t 4 t 1824

[Illustration: NOTE OF DR. SAMUEL L. MITCHELL, WRITTEN

HURRIEDLY IN PENCIL, RECOMMENDING AUDUBON TO HIS FRIEND, DR.

BARNES, AUGUST 4, 1824

From the Howland MSS.]

Dr. Mitchell, who was the father and first president of the Lyceum

of Natural History, had been a friend of young Audubon when he was

clerking in New York in 1807.[311] His recommendation was accepted,

and the naturalist was enrolled on the Lyceum's list of members; to

justify his election, two papers, representing his first contribution

to ornithology, were presented to the Society, and appeared in its

_Annals_ of that year.[312] Audubon visited the Lyceum with Dr.

DeKay and exhibited his drawings, but said that he felt awkward and

uncomfortable. On August 3 he called on John Vanderlyn, the artist,

examined his pictures, and "saw the medal given him by Napoleon, but was

not impressed with the idea that he was a great painter." Upon meeting

Vanderlyn again a little later, he was asked to sit for a portrait

of Andrew Jackson; his journal entry regarding the incident was as

follows:[313]

August 10. My spirits low, and I long for the woods again; but

the prospect of becoming better known prompts me to remain

another day. Met the artist Vanderlyn, who asked me to give

him a sitting for a portrait of General Jackson, since my

figure considerably resembled that of the General, more than

any he had ever seen. I likewise sketched my landlady and

child, and filled my time.

The context shows that the sitting was given, and as Mr. Stanley C.

Arthur remarks, Vanderlyn's portrait, which now hangs in the City Hall

in New York, shows "Old Hickory" from the shoulders up, but from the

shoulders down it is John James Audubon.

On the 14th Audubon wrote cheerfully to Sully:

_Audubon to Thomas Sully_

My reception in New York has surpassed my hopes. I have been

most kindly [received], and had I seen Col. Trumball, I would

have found him the gentleman you represented, but his absence

at Saratoga Springs has deprived me of that pleasure.

New York is now an immense city. Strangers are received here

with less reserve generally than at Philadelphia. I found the

Academy well supplied with paintings, and sculptures of the

Greek masters. The steam boats of the Sweet Ohio, with all

their swiftness of motion and beautiful forms, do not interest

the eye like those that are here tossing over the foaming

billows with the grace of the wild swan. Were I a painter—ah

could I, like ——, carry in my mind's eye all my mind feels

when looking at the Battery at the moon's tender reflections

on the farthest sails, forcing the vessel they move with the

very wind's heart,—express as he does the quick moving tar

hauling in a reef at the yard's end,—and make on the canvas a

noble commander speak, as you have done; then, my dear friend,

I could show you New York's harbor and all its beauties....

I cannot part with that Fair City [Philadelphia] this soon;

I cannot help thanking Fairman, Peale, Neagle, Le Sueur,

and many others besides Mc Murty for their attentions to

me. Should you see honest Quaker Haines, beg him to believe

me his friend; should you see Mr. Ord, tell him I never was

his enemy. Think of me some time, and accept the truest best

wishes of

JOHN J. AUDUBON.

I leave for Boston tomorrow. Should you please to write to

me, direct to Care of Messrs. Anshutz & Co, Pittsburgh, where

I shall be in about 40 days.

The very next day Audubon changed his plans and sailed up the Hudson to

Albany, where he hoped to meet De Witt Clinton, then at the height of

his fame, who in the course of his great undertakings had found time

to write letters on the natural history and antiquities of his State,

and Dr. Beck, the botanist. Failing to find either at home, Audubon was

compelled by the depleted state of his pocketbook to give up his plan

of visiting Boston, and being determined to see Niagara Falls, he took

passage on a canal boat to Buffalo instead. The Falls were reached on

the 24th of August, and it was then, on recording his name at an hotel,

that Audubon wrote underneath: "Who, like Wilson, will ramble, but

never, like that great man, die under the lash of a bookseller."[314]

Upon his first view of the Falls he was satisfied that Niagara never had

been and never could be painted. He wanted to cross the bridge at Goat

Island but was deterred by the necessity of economy. Visitors it seems,

had already learned to venture under a small section of the American

Falls, and Audubon said that while looking through the falling sheet of

water, "at their feet thousands of eels were lying side by side, trying

vainly to ascend the torrent." After strolling through the village to

find some bread and milk, the naturalist recorded that he ate a good

dinner for twelve cents, and that he went to bed "thinking of Franklin

eating his roll in the streets of Philadelphia, of Goldsmith traveling

by the aid of his musical powers, and of other great men who had worked

their way through hardships and difficulties to fame, and fell asleep,

hoping, by persevering industry, to make a name for himself among his

countrymen."

The schooner from Buffalo to Erie, Pennsylvania, on which Audubon had

taken deck passage, as he was unable to afford a berth in the cabin,

was caught in a violent gale on the way and was obliged to anchor in

the harbor of Presque Isle. "It was on the 29th of August, 1824," his

diary reads, "and never shall I forget that morning." Captain Judd, of

the United States Navy, had sent a gig with six men to its relief, and

"my drawings," he continues, "were put into the boat with the greatest

care. We shifted into it, and seated ourselves according to direction.

Our brave fellows pulled hard, and every moment brought us nearer the

American shore; I leaped upon it with elated heart. My drawings were

safely landed, and for anything else I cared little at the moment."

At this point Audubon set out with a fellow traveler, who was also

an artist, for Meadville, Pennsylvania. The earliest version of his

journal[315] which gives an account of this experience reads as follows:

On the shore of upper Canada, my money was stolen. The thief,

perhaps, imagined it was of little importance to a naturalist.

To repine at what could not be helped would have been unmanly.

I felt satisfied Providence had relief in store. Seven dollars

and a half were left to us, two persons, 1500 miles from home,

at the entrance of Presque-Isle Harbor.

Five dollars was paid to their driver, and when they reached Meadville,

and entered J. E. Smith's "Traveler's Rest," they had but one hundred

and fifty cents between them. No time was to be lost, and Audubon at

once started out with his portfolio and his artist friend to look for

work:

I walked up the Main Street, looking for _heads_, till I saw a

Hollander gentleman in a store, who looked as if he might want

a sketch. I begged him to allow me to sit down. This granted,

I remained perfectly silent till he very soon asked: "What

is in that portfolio"? This sounded well; I opened it. He

complimented me on my drawings of birds and flowers. Showing

him a portrait of my Best Friend, I asked him if he would like

one of himself. He said "Yes, and I will exert myself to gain

as many more customers as I can."

According to a story current at Meadville long after the event Audubon

made the acquaintance of Mr. Benedict, a merchant, lately come from

New Haven, whose attractive daughter, named Jennett,[316] was then one

and twenty; his family lived at the village tavern, called the "Torbett

House," in which Mr. Augustus Colson had a store. It was Mr. Colson, to

whom Audubon probably refers, who responded generously to his appeal for

work, and called in a number of his young friends as possible patrons.

Among them was Miss Jennett Benedict, and the naturalist, attracted

by her agreeable manners and pleasing appearance, asked permission to

make a portrait-sketch, saying that he would pay for the privilege by

presenting her with a copy. This was evidently good business enterprise,

for, according to the story, a grain bin in the Colson store was

soon converted into a studio, and Audubon was rewarded by a number of

sitters. Here is his account from the record just quoted:

Next day I entered the _artist's room_, by crazy steps of the

store-garret; four windows faced each other at right angles;

in a corner was a cat nursing, among rags for a paper-mill;

hogsheads of oats, Dutch toys on the floor, a large drum,

a bassoon, fur caps along the walls, a hammock and rolls of

leather. Closing the extra windows with blankets, I procured

a painter's light.

A young man sat to try my skill; his phiz was approved; then

the merchant; the room became crowded. In the evening I joined

him in music on the flute and violin. My fellow traveller also

had made two sketches. We wrote a page or two in our journals,

and went to rest.

The next day was spent as yesterday. Our pockets replenished,

we walked to Pittsburgh in two days.

[Illustration: MISS JENNETT BENEDICT AN EXAMPLE OF AUDUBON'S

ITINERANT PORTRAITURE; DRAWN AT MEADVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA, IN

1824. AFTER THE ORIGINAL CRAYON DRAWING IN POSSESSION OF MR.

FREDERICK A. STERLING.]

[Illustration: MISS ELIZA PIRRIE "MY LOVELY MISS PIRRIE

OF 'OAKLEY,'" AUDUBON'S PUPIL IN 1821. AFTER A PORTRAIT

IN POSSESSION OF HER GRANDDAUGHTER, MISS LUCY M. MATTHEWS.

PUBLISHED BY COURTESY OF MR. STANLEY CLISBY ARTHUR.]

A month was spent at Pittsburgh, where Audubon searched the country for

birds and continued his drawings. While there he made the acquaintance

of the Reverend John Henry Hopkins, a man of superb appearance and rare

conversational and oratorical powers, later known as the learned and

versatile first Episcopal Bishop of Vermont. Audubon attended some of

the ministrations of this remarkable man, through whose influence, he

said, "I was brought to think, more than I usually did, of religious

matters; but I never think of churches without feeling sick at heart

at the sham and show of some of their professors. To repay evil with

kindness is the religion that I was taught to practice, and this will

forever be my rule."

In the autumn of 1824 Audubon planned another visit to the Great

Lakes in search of new birds, and tried to induce his friend, Mr.

Edward Harris, to accompany him. While wandering in the forests along

those lakes he thought out the plan which was finally followed in the

publication of his _Birds of America_: