48 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Nov. 5, 
name of Audubon & Co., to carry on business in New Orleans, 
and embarked in this enterprise all his fortune. But as usual, 
instead of attending to business, he passed his days hunting and 
fishing, and was soon informed that all his means had been lost. 
He was now nearly at the end of his resources, but gathering 
together a few hundred dollars, he invested them in goods and 
commenced business again at Henderson. Strangely enough, 
he prospered, purchased land and a log cabin to which a family 
of negroes was attached as part of the property, and began to 
be pretty comfortable. 
This state of affairs, however, was not long to continue, for 
he was soon joined by a former partner, whose alliance always 
brought disaster, and who now persuaded him to erect a steam 
mill, which brought all interested in it to ruin. His troubles 
increased daily, and he was assailed by all manner of difficulties. 
Giving up to his creditors all he possessed, he departed with his 
family, dog, gun and precious drawings, from which he never 
allowed himself to be separated, and went to Louisville, and 
then to Cincinnati, where he was engaged as a kind of curator 
in the museum, his work being chiefly that of a taxidermist. 
From Cincinnati he went to Natchez and was engaged to 
teach drawing in the college at Washington, near that town. 
His work interfered greatly with his ornithological pursuits 
and depressed his spirits, and although he prospered he says, 
“the hope of completing my book upon the Birds of America 
[which he now desired to publish] became less clear, and, full of 
despair, I feared my hopes of becoming known to HKurope as a 
naturalist were destined to be blasted.” Throughout his writ- 
ings there is found these constant expressions of this desire to 
become known and to leave a name upon the roll of naturalists, 
but it was not a representation of “‘ Fame blowing out from her 
golden trumpet a jubilant challenge to Time and to Fate” that 
appeared to his despairing eyes, for he seemed always to per- 
ceive a quiescent goddess with trumpet idle in her hand, and to 
hear no resonant note blown in recognition of himself, and in 
frank and simple language he expressed his fears that he should 
die unheralded and unknown. 
Mrs. Audubon wished her husband to go to Europe to receive 
instruction in oil painting, and to aid him in accomplishing this, 
engaged herself as governess ina family at Bayou Sara. Audubon 
having, exhausted his patronage at Natchez resolved to start 
with an artist named Stein in a wagon and make a trip through 
the Southwestern States as perambulating portrait painters, 
having, as he says, resolved “to break through all bounds and 
follow his ornithological pursuits.” His friends regarded him 
