PREPARES FOR HIS LAST JOURNEY. 347 



Besides all this labour, he devoted occasional spare hours to 

 improving and increasing the drawings of the quadrupeds of 

 North America, which he had begun some years before in con- 

 nection with the Eev. John Backman of South Carolina. 



The early pages of the journal show that Audubon had been 

 anxious to visit the great interior valley of the Mississippi and 

 the Rocky Mountains ever since he began to devote his time 

 exclusively to ornithological research ; and twenty years before 

 his return to America, he had traced out the course he wished 

 to go. During all those years of unremitting toil, the desire 

 and hope of seeing the Great Plains and the Eocky Mountains 

 never deserted him. But after he had resolved to complete and 

 publish his work on the Quadrupeds of America, he felt that it 

 would be impossible for him to do it satisfactorily until he had 

 seen with his own eyes the buffaloes of the plains, and other 

 animals of those regions whose habits had never been described. 



Much of his earthly work was done ; the infirmities of age were 

 stealing upon him ; and the Journal often alludes to the fact that 

 his physical powers were not equal to his mental longings. He 

 seems to have determined therefore to make an effort to ac- 

 complish the long-cherished desire of his heart, to look on the 

 magnificent scenery of the prairies and mountains of the West, 

 and to gather the materials for his Quadrupeds, which he knew 

 would probably be his last work on earth. So as soon as he had 

 settled his family at Minnie's Land, where he invested all the 

 money he had made by his publications up to that date, he 

 prepared at once for his last great journey, the grandest of all 

 his journeys, to the Western Wilderness, 



