CHAPTER XIV. 



The Meeting with his Wife and Sons — Return with his Wife t6 

 England -^ Provincial Canvass — East Florida. 



FTER remaining a few days at his lodgings, Au- 

 dubon started off to his wife and children, who 

 were then residing in the south and west ; Vic- 

 tor at Louisville, Kentucky, and Mrs Audubon and John 

 at Mr. Garret Johnson's, in Mississippi, about one hun- 

 dred and fifty miles above New Orleans. 



" I crossed the mountains to Pittsburg, in the mail- 

 coach, with my dog and gun, and calling on my wife's re- 

 lations, and one of my old partners, Mr. Thomas Pears, 

 I proceeded down the Ohio in a steamboat to Louisville. 

 On entering the counting-house of my relative, Mr. W. 

 G. Bakewell, I saw my son Victor at a desk, but per- 

 haps would not have recognized him had he not known 

 me at once. And the pleasure I experienced on pressing 

 him to my breast was increased when I discovered how 

 much my dear boy had improved, as I had not seen him 

 for five years. My son John Woodhouse I also found at 

 Mr. Berthond's, and he had also grown and improved. 

 After spending a few days at Louisville, I took passage 

 on another steamer going down the Mississippi, and in a 

 few days landed at Bayou Sara, and was soon at the 

 house of Mr. Johnson, and came suddenly on my dear 

 wife : we were both overcome with emotion, which found 

 relief in tears." 



The following interesting allusions to Audubon's visit, 

 are from the pen of T. B. Thorpe, for many years a res- 

 ident of the South -West. "When we first arrived in 



