238 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



iana, on the right bank of the Mississippi, a hundred 

 miles north of the mouth of the Ohio. 



This new venture promised to be both hazardous and 

 uncertain, and as Mrs. Audubon and Rozier were not 

 on the friendliest terms, Audubon decided to leave his 

 family at Henderson, where a home for his wife and 

 infant son could always be had under the hospitable roof 

 of Dr. Adam Rankin, who became one of the naturalist's 

 staunchest friends. If their stock in trade at this time 

 actually consisted of "three hundred barrels of whisky, 

 sundry dry-goods and powder," as Audubon affirmed, 

 the keel boat which they then engaged was certainly 

 calculated to bear a goodly load. 4 At all events the 

 partners, with young Pope, their clerk, set out bravely, 

 in a snow storm, in December, 1810. They floated with 

 the current at a rate of about five miles an hour, while 

 they helped their craft along by means of four oars in 

 her bow and steered it with the aid of a slender tree 

 trunk, "shaped at its outer extremity like the fin of a 

 dolphin." 



This journey of upwards of 165 miles lasted altogeth- 

 er more than nine weeks. It proved adventurous enough, 

 but it was of no use to Audubon except in furnishing 

 him with drawings of new birds and the raw materials 

 for many "Episodes." The journal of his experiences 

 on the great rivers during that eventful winter of 1810 

 and 1811 is interesting for the sidelights which it throws 

 both upon his character and upon the state of the coun- 

 try at an elder day. Held up by the ice for several 

 weeks at Cash Creek, near the mouth of the Ohio, to 

 his own delight but to Rozier's sorrow, Audubon 

 tramped the country and hunted wild swans and larger 

 game with the friendly Shawnee Indians. "When one 



4 See Vol. I, p. 235. 



