THORNS ON THE ROSE 69 



family were well. I am not much astonished that in Phila- 

 delphia, remarks such as you allude to, should have been made 

 respecting some papers on the habits of objects of Natural 

 History, read by me to different institutions in this country, 

 but I am grieved at it. 



The greatest portion of my life has been devotedly spent 

 in the active investigation of Nature, her beauties & her 

 objects in granting to different individuals, classes, or species, 

 such privileges as best suit their form, situation, or habits. 

 This arduous task I have followed with unremitting diligence, 

 and with a degree of industry that has caused to my family 

 and to myself more troubles than any person in Philadelphia 

 can be aware of. For more than 20 years I have been in the 

 regular habit of writing down every day all the incidents of 

 which I have been an eye-witness, on the spot, & without con- 

 fiding to my memory, as many travellers have done and still 

 do. You have read some portion of this journal, and have also 

 been an eye-witness of many of the occurrences, and to this I 

 now owe the gratification of possessing your esteem, but, My 

 dear Mr. Sully, you are not the only evidence. Mr. Joseph 

 Mason, who is now, I believe, an artist in your city, accom- 

 panied me on a hunting excursion, beginning at Cincinati, and 

 ending in the State of Louisiana, which lasted 18 months. He 

 drew with me; he was my daily companion, and we both rolled 

 ourselves together on bufaloe robes at night. James Cum- 

 mings, Esq., past captain, the author of a treatise on the 

 navigation of the rivers Ohio and Mississippi, was one of the 

 party, and he saw me write in my Journal, and read it fre- 

 quently. Every member of my family has seen the whole of those 

 Diaries and could readily assert the truth of the whole of their 

 contents, to many of which they were party, present and acting. 



The papers alluded to in your estimable letter, are merely 

 copies from those journals; they were transcribed in Edin- 

 burgh, and the style corrected by patrons, who saw the orig- 

 inals, nearly worn out by time and the casual dampness, which 

 journals like mine must often be exposed to. I read these 

 papers to the different societies, of which I have the honor to 



