48 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [NOV. 5, 



name of Audubon & Co., to carry on business in New Orleans, 

 and embarked in this enterprise all his fortune. But as usual, 

 instead of attending to business, he passed his days hunting and 

 fishing, and was soon informed that all his means had been lost. 



He "was now nearly at the end of his resources, but gathering 

 together a few hundred dollars, he invested them in goods and 

 commenced business again at Henderson. Strangely enough, 

 he prospered, purchased land and a log cabin to which a fomily 

 of negroes was attached as part of the property, and l)egan to 

 be pretty comfortable. 



This state of affairs, however, was not long to continue, for 

 he was soon joined by a former partner, whose alliance always 

 brought disaster, and who now persuaded him to erect a steam 

 mill, "which brought all interested in it to ruin. His troubles 

 increased daily, and he was assailed by all manner of ditliculties. 

 Giving up to his creditors all he possessed, he departed with his 

 family, dog, gun and precious drawings, from which he never 

 allowed himself to be separated, and went to Louisville, and 

 then to Cincinnati, where he was engaged as a kind of curator 

 in the museum, his work being chiefly that of a taxidermist. 



From Cincinnati he went to Natchez and was engaged to 

 teach drawing in the college at Washington, near that town. 

 His work interfered greatly with his ornithological pursuits 

 and depressed his spirits, and although he prospered he says, 

 " the hope of completing my book upon the Birds of America 

 [which he now desired to publish] became less clear, and, full of 

 despair, I feared my hopes of becoming known to Europe as a 

 naturalist were destined to be blasted." Throughout his writ- 

 ings there is found these constant expressions of this desire to 

 become known and to leave a name upon the roll of naturalists, 

 but it was not a representation of " Fame blowing out from her 

 golden trumpet a jubilant challenge to Time and to Fate" that 

 appeared to his despairing e3'es, for he seemed always to per- 

 ceive a quiescent goddess with trumpet idle in her hand, and, to 

 hear no resonant note blown in recognition of himself, and in 

 frank and simple language he expressed his fears that he should 

 die unheralded and unknown. 



Mrs. Audubon Avished her husband to go to Europe to receive 

 instruction in oil painting, and to aid him in accomplishing this, 

 engaged herself as governess in a family at Bayou Sara. Audubon 

 having exhausted his patronage at Natchez resolved to start 

 with an artist named Stein in a wagon and make a trip through 

 the Southwestern States as perambulating portrait painters, 

 having, as he says, resolved "to break through all bounds and 

 follow his ornithological pursuits." His friends regarded him 



