380 Life of Auduhon. 



and who assisted me greatly ; at his house I met Pres- 

 ident Thomas Cooper, who assured me he had seen a 

 rattlesnake climb a five-rail fence on his land. I received 

 from the treasury of the State four hundred and twenty 

 dollars on account of its subscription for one copy of the 

 ' Birds of America ' " 



Dreading the railway, he hired a carriage for forty 

 dollars to proceed to Charleston, where he arrived in four 

 days, and found his son John, and was kindly received, 

 with his wife, by the Rev. John Bachman. 



Charleston, S. C., October 24, 1833. Our time at 

 Charleston has been altogether pleasant. The hospital- 

 ity of our friends cannot be described, and now that we 

 are likely to be connected by family ties I shall say no 

 more on this head." John and Victor Audubon were 

 subsequently married to daughters of this gentleman. 



" My time was well employed ; I hunted for new birds 

 or searched for more knowledge of old. I drew ; I wrote 

 many long pages. I obtained a few new subscribers, and 

 made some collections on account of my work. 



" My proposed voyage to Florida, which was arranged 

 for the 3d of November, was abandoned on account oi 

 the removal of my good friend Captain Robert Day from 

 his former station to New York, and I did not like to 

 launch on the Florida reefs in the care of a young officer 

 unknown to me ; and besides this, my son Victor wrote me 

 from England desiring my return. So we began to pre- 

 pare gradually for a retrograde movement toward the 

 north, and on the ist of March we left our friends and 

 Charleston to return to New York. We travelled through 

 North and South Carolina, and reached Norfolk, Va., on 

 the 6th ; went up the bay to Washington, thence to Bal- 

 timore, and took lodgings at Theodore Anderson's in 

 Fayette Street. 



" At Baltimore we saw all our friends and obtained 



