252 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



But I wish you would assure your good mother that to go to 

 Yellow Stone River, in a good Steamer, as passengers by the 

 courteous offers of the President of the American Fur Com- 

 pany who himself will go along with us, that the difficulties that 

 existed some 30 years ago in such undertakings are now rend- 

 ered as Smooth and easy as it is to go to Carlisle and return to 

 N. Y. as many times as would make up the Sum in Miles of 

 about 3000: Our difficulties (if any there are) will be felt on 

 our return; when we must come back to St. Louis in one or 2 

 open boats in Sep r and part of Oct r next. The passage being 

 longer or shorter accordingly with the state of the Missouri at 

 that Season. 4 



Young Baird would gladly have accompanied Au- 

 dubon, but the fears of his friends for his health and 

 safety interposed, and the party as eventually made up 

 comprised, beside the naturalist, John G. Bell, as tax- 

 idermist, Isaac Sprague, artist, Lewis Squires, general 

 assistant and secretary, and his old friend Edward Har- 

 ris. 



Audubon left his home on March 11, 1843, with Vic- 

 tor, who accompanied him as far as Philadelphia, where 

 a rendezvous was made before starting west. The party 

 went first to Baltimore, and by steam cars to Cumber- 

 land, then by coach through the Gap, and across the 

 Alleghanies to Wheeling, where a steamer took them 

 down river to Cincinnati. On March 19 they reached 

 Louisville, where Audubon spent four days with his 

 brother-in-law, William G. Bakewell, and on the 28th 

 they arrived at St. Louis, where the party completed 

 their outfit. On April 25 they began their ascent to the 

 Missouri, in the steamer Magnet, a small vessel belong- 



4 See William H. Ball, Spencer Fullerton Baird, a Biography (Bibl. 

 No. 52), pp. 88-91, for the complete letters from which the preceding 

 extracts have been taken. 



