226 Life of Audubon. 



greater part of which he actually devoured at one meal. 

 With more comfortable feelings he then resumed his wan- 

 derings, his journey I cannot say, for although in the 

 possession of all his faculties, and in broad daylight, he 

 was worse off than a lame man groping his way in the 

 dark out of a dungeon, of which he knew not where the 

 door stood. Days one after another passed nay, weeks 

 in succession. He fed now on cabbage trees, then on 

 frogs and snakes. All that fell in his way was welcome 

 and savory. Yet he became daily more emaciated, and 

 at length he could scarcely crawl ; forty days had elapsed, 

 by his own reckoning, when he at last reached the banks 

 of the river. His clothes in tatters, his once bright axe 

 dimmed with rust, his face begrimed with beard, his hair 

 matted, and his feeble frame little better than a skeleton 

 covered with parchment, there he laid himself down to 

 die. Amid the perturbed dreams of his fevered fancy, he 

 thought he heard the noise of oars far away on the silent 

 river. He listened, but the sounds died away on his 

 ear. It was indeed a dream, the last glimmer of expir- 

 ing hope, and now the light of life was about to be 

 quenched for ever. But again the sound of oars awoke 

 him from his lethargy. He listened so eagerly that the 

 hum of a fly could not have escaped his ear. They were 

 indeed the measured beats of oars ; and now, joy to the 

 forlorn soul ! the sound of human voices thrilled to his 

 heart, and awoke the tumultuous pulses of returning hope. 

 On his knees did the eye of God see that poor man, by 

 the broad, still stream, that glittered in the sunbeams, and 

 human eyes soon saw him too, for round that headland 

 covered with tangled brushwood boldly advances the lit- 

 tle boat, propelled by its lusty rowers. The lost one 

 raises his feeble voice on high ; it was a loud shrill scream 

 of joy and fear. The rowers pause, and look around. 

 Another, but feebler scream, and they observe him. I 



