148 THE LIFE OF PHILIP HENRY GOSSE. 



To Canaday, to Canaday, 



All the way to Canaday. 



Gin'ral Jackson gain'd the day ; 



At New Orleans he gain'd the day ; 

 Ringo ! ringo ! blaze away t 

 Fire the ringo ! fire away ! ' " 



Later on the last evening of the year 1838, he entered 

 Mobile, where he had to stay a week before proceeding to 

 England. At Mobile he found his poor shattered insect 

 cabinet from Canada, lying in a warehouse in a shocking 

 condition, but with the contents not so hopelessly destroyed 

 as he had every reason to fear that he should find them. 

 It was pleasant to gaze on his captures, after having been 

 parted from them for nearly a year. From Alabama he 

 carried home about twenty specimens of the skins of rare 

 birds, and a few fur-pelts. In cash he found that he was, 

 when he had paid his passage to England, even poorer 

 than when he left Canada. So poor was he that he was 

 obliged, immediately on his arrival in Liverpool, to part 

 with his furs and skins hastily, and therefore at a wretched 

 price. His entomological collection he sold, for a fair 

 sum, to the well-known insect-buyer, Mr. Melly. As a 

 matter of fact, however, the rolling stone returned to 

 England, after an exile of eleven years, with practically no 

 moss whatever on its surface. He was completing his 

 twenty-ninth year, and life still seemed wholly inhospitable 

 to him. He had not chanced yet on the employment for 

 which alone he was fitted, but he had unconsciously gone 

 through an excellent apprenticeship for it. It was on his 

 return voyage to England in January, 1839, that Philip 

 Gosse began to be a professional author. 



