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. 



^^ Lojiisvilky 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. 



" 1 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 

 awf il scourge the yellow fever prevailed, and was taking 

 off the citizens with greater rapidity than had ever before 



