﻿128 



MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



Apparently young Lindheimer soon after closed out his 

 business affairs, and, taking his patrimony, sailed for America 

 early in the spring of 1834. He landed at New York,* took 

 the steamer to Troy, went by way of the Erie Canal to Buffalo, 

 across the lake by steamer and down the Ohio Canal from 

 Cleveland to Portsmouth. From here a river steamer car- 

 ried him down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to St. Louis, 

 from which he went to the German settlement at Belleville, 

 Illinois, where the Engelmanns, Hilgards, Koerner, and many 

 others of his friends and fellow townsmen had entered farms 

 and established homes. He gives an account of his life there 

 himself,! a fair sample of his general style of composition : 



"In a forest in St. Clair County in the State of Illinois, 

 stood an abandoned log-house, which eight young men, 

 mostly newcomers, had chosen for their provisional dwelling. 

 Not far distant from it was the hospitable farm of Forest- 

 master E., who had arrived a short time before from Rhenish 

 Bavaria with a numerous family. The eight young men 

 shared the living expenses with them. I am convinced that 

 each of the eight will still recall the pleasure of the moment 

 when the tone of the ox-horn sounded through the forest, 

 calling them to dinner with that kind family, which, hke 

 most families, consisted not wholly of male companions. 



"A great, carefully-planned drive-hunt, in which few wild 

 animals were shot, moderately productive hunting for prairie- 

 hens, and from time to time a rousing banquet, to which the 

 neighbors were invited, shortened our time for us in a delight- 

 ful manner. 



"Though this aimless and thoughtless life was for a time 

 pleasant for all of us, yet it was not for the far niente and the 

 'aus der Tasche zehren nicht der Zweck,' for which we had 

 come to America. The forest and the prairie had already put 

 on their pale autumnal mantle and a single 'norther' be- 

 tokened the coming winter. The roof of our old log-cabin 

 was so open that we could make astronomical observations 

 from our beds, and the great chimney, in the la&t cold winter, 



* Trans. 111. State Hist. Soc. for 1894. pp. 289-292. 

 t Aufsiitze und Abhandlungen. pp. 78, 79. 



