('» -' Wf 



474 



AUDUBON 



■r 



had none but what he brought on his back. He then 

 loosened the pack of weeds which had first drawn my 

 attention. The ladies were a httle surprised, but I checked 

 their critical glances for the moment. The naturalist 

 pulled off his shoes, and while engaged in drawing his 

 stockings, not up, but down, in order to cover the holes 

 about the heels, told us in the gayest mood imaginable 

 that he had walked a great distance, and had only taken a 

 passage on board the ark, to be put on this shore, and that 

 he was sorry his apparel had suffered so much from his 

 late journey. Clean clothes were offered, but he would 

 not accept them, and it was with evident reluctance that 

 he performed the lavations usual on such occasions before 

 he sat down to dinner. 



At table, however, his agreeable conversation made us 

 all forget his singular appearance ; and, indeed, it was only 

 as we strolled together in the garden that his attire struck 

 me as exceedingly remarkable. A long loose coat of 

 yellow nankeen, much the worse for the many rubs it had 

 got in its time, and stained all over with the juice of plants, 

 hung loosely about him like a sac. A waistcoat of the 

 same, with enormous pockets, and buttoned up to his chin, 

 reached below over a pair of tight pantaloons, the lower 

 parts of which were buttoned down to the ankles. His 

 beard was as long as I have known my own to be during 

 some of my peregrinations, and his lank black hair hung 

 loosely over his shoulders. His forehead was so broad 

 and prominent that any tyro in phrenology would instantly 

 have pronounced it the residence of a mind of strong 

 powers. His words impressed an assurance of rigid truth, 

 and as he directed the conversation to the study of the 

 natural sciences, I listened to him with as much delight as 

 Telemachus could have listened to Mentor. He had come 

 to visit me, he said, expressly for the purpose of seeing my 

 drawings, having been told that my representations of 

 birds were accompanied with those of shrubs and plants. 



