Letter from Audubon. 407 



natural objects, of which that portion which has been made 

 known to us, creates the most anxious solicitude for what re- 

 mains unknown. The country, too, where Wilson studied nature 

 so well and feelingly, though for want of patronage he died in 

 poverty ; and where Audubon has excelled all other men in the 

 justice which genius can do to nature, though, for the want of 

 the same patronage, he was driven to England to seek his bread. 

 By what extraordinary attainments he found both it, and a fame 

 that will never die, we shall relate in our next number. 



LETTER FROM J. J. AUDUBON, TO THE EDITOR. 



Bulowville, East Florida, December 31, 1831. 



My Dear F. — I have just returned from an expedition down 

 the Halifax river, about 40 miles from this place, and 80 south 

 of St. Augustine. I feel confident, that an account of it will be 

 interesting to you ; and I therefore set to. — Mr. J. J. Bulow, a 

 rich planter, at whose house myself and party have been a 

 whole week, under the most hospitable and welcome treatment 

 that could possibly be expected, proposed, three days since, that 

 we should proceed down the river, In search of new or valuable 

 birds; and accordingly, the boat, six hands, and " three white men," 

 with some provisions, put off, with a fair wind, and a pure sky. I 

 say a pure sky, because not a cloud interrupted the rich blue of 

 the heavens in this generally favoured latitude. — We meandered 

 down a creek for about eleven miles — the water nearly torpid 

 yet clear — the shore lined with thousands of acres covered by 

 fall grapes, marshes, and high-palm trees ; rendering the shore 

 quite novel to my anxious eye. — Some birds were shot, and 

 secured so as to be brought back, in order to undergo the skin- 

 ning operation. — Before long we entered the Halifax river, an in- 

 land arm of the sea, measuring in breadth from a quarter to 

 nearly a mile. The breeze was keen from the north-east, and 

 our light bark leaped over the waves gaily onward, toward the 

 spot which we all anxiously anticipated to reach ere night came 

 on. We did so, passing several plantations on the western bank, 

 and at last reaching a schooner from New York, anchored at 

 what is here called a live-oak landing. — Kindly received by the 

 master and his men, we spent the night very agreeably, and as 



