114 Life of Audubon. 



" While at Cincinnati I was beset by claims for the 

 payment of articles which years before had been ordered 

 for the Museum, but from which I got no benefit. With- 

 out money or the means of making it, I applied to Messrs. 

 Keating and Bell for the loan of fifteen dollars, but had 

 not the courage to do so until I had walked past their 

 house several times, unable to make up my mind how to 

 ask the favor. I got the loan cheerfully, and took a 

 deck-passage to Louisville. I was allowed to take my 

 meals in the cabin, and at night slept among some 

 shavings I managed to scrape together. The spirit of 

 contentment which I now feel is strange, it borders on 

 the sublime ; and, enthusiast or lunatic, as some of my 

 relatives will have me, I am glad to possess such a 

 spirit. 



"Louisville, November 20. Took lodgings at the 

 house of a person to whom I had given lessons, and 

 hastened to Shippingport to see my son Victor. Re- 

 ceived a letter from General Jackson, with an introduc- 

 tion to the Governor of Florida. I discover that my 

 friends think only of my apparel, and those upon whom 

 I have conferred acts of kindness prefer to remind me 

 of my errors. I decide to go down the Mississippi to 

 my old home of Bayou Sara, and there open a school, 

 with the profits of which to complete my ornithological 

 studies. Engage a passage for eight dollars. 



" I arrived at Bayou Sara with rent and wasted clothes 

 and uncut hair, and altogether looking like the Wander- 

 ing Jew. 



" The steamer which brought me was on her way to 

 New Orleans, and I was put ashore in a small boat about 

 midnight, and left to grope my way on a dark, rainy, and 

 sultry night to the village, about one mile distant. That 

 awful scourge the yellow fever prevailed, and was taking 

 off the citizens with greater rapidity than had ever before 



