82 Life of Audubon. 



friends the Pamars received me kindly and raised my 

 spirits ; they looked on me as a son returned from a long 

 and dangerous voyage, and children and servants as well 

 as the parents were all glad to see me. 



''^ October 2^. Rented a house in Dauphine street at 

 seventeen dollars per month, and determined to bring 

 my family to New Orleans. Since I left Cincinnati, 

 October 12, 1820, I have finished sixty-two drawings 

 of birds and plants, three quadrupeds, two snakes, fifty 

 portraits of all sorts, and have subsisted by my humble 

 talents, not having had a dollar when I started. I sent 

 a draft to my wife, and began life in New Orleans with 

 forty-two dollars, health, and much anxiety to pursue my 

 plan of collecting all the birds of America." 



Audubon speaks with boyish gayety of the comfort 

 which a new suit of clothes gave him. He called on 

 Mrs. Clay with his drawings, but got no work — no pupils. 

 He determined to make a public exhibition of his ornitho- 

 logical drawings. 



Under date November 10, he remarks : "Mr. Baste- 

 rop called on me, and wished me to join him in painting 

 a panorama of the city ; but my birds, my beloved birds 

 of America, occupy all my time, and nearly all my 

 thoughts, and I do not wish to see any other perspective 

 than the last specimen of these drawings." 



Audubon relates many instances of squatter life on 

 the great American rivers. The features of this peculiar 

 life struck him with a picturesque force that makes his 

 descriptions of the constant emigrations from the East, 

 and the settlement of the wanderers in the West, very 

 interesting indeed. In a detailed account he describes 

 how the settlers in Virginia became impoverished through 

 the reckless system of husbandry pursued, and how, after 

 suffering penury, they determined to emigrate to more 

 fertile lands. He thus graphically narrates the patri- 

 archal wanderings of the wearied wayfarers. 



