276 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 



chance acquaintance a good turn, when the latter was 

 about to sail for England in 1826. 5 Nolte, said 

 Audubon, 



was mounted on a superb horse, for which he had paid three 

 hundred dollars, and a servant on horseback led another as a 

 change. I was then an utter stranger to him, and when I 

 approached and praised his horse, he not very courteously ob- 

 served that he wished I had as good a one. Finding that he was 

 going to Bedford to spend the night, I asked him what hour he 

 would get there: "Just soon enough to have some trouts ready 

 for our supper, provided you will join when you get there." 

 I almost imagined that Barro understood our conversation; 

 he pricked up his ears, and lengthened his pace, on which Mr. 

 Nolte caracolled his horse, and then put him to quick trot, but 

 all in vain ; for I reached the hotel nearly a quarter of an hour 

 before him, ordered the trouts, saw to the putting away of my 

 good horse, and stood ready at the door to welcome my com- 

 panion. From that day to this Vincent Nolte has been a friend 

 to me. 



Audubon added that they rode together as far as 

 Shippingport, now a part of Louisville, where his 

 brother-in-law, Nicholas Berthoud, was then living. 



We shall now follow the equally circumstantial but 

 widely divergent account of this meeting and the sub- 

 sequent journey as given by the other traveler. Nolte 

 had sailed from Liverpool in September, 1811, and 

 landed in New York after a perilous voyage of forty- 

 eight days. He had no servant, but was accompanied 

 by a young Englishman, named Edward Hollander, 

 whom he had engaged in a business capacity while in 

 London and with whom he was making his way to New 

 Orleans. Hollander had been sent in advance to Pitts- 



6 See Chapter XXI, p. 352. 



