CHAPTER XXVII 



EASTERN VISIT AND EXPLORATIONS IN THE NORTH 



ATLANTIC 



Bachman's success as a canvasser — Boston visit — Journey to Portland — 

 Ascent of the St. John's — Return overland — Victor Audubon becomes 

 his father's agent — Winter in Boston — The Golden Eagle — Stricken 

 with illness — Expedition to Labrador planned — American support — 

 Sails from Eastport with five assistants — Discoveries and adventures 

 on the Labrador — Safe return — Another winter at Charleston — Sued 

 for old debts — Experience with vultures — Advice and Instruction to 

 a son — ^Working habits — Return to England. 



Foiled in his attempt to see the Florida coast at the 

 season best suited to his purposes, and disappointed in 

 his ambition to penetrate to the Far West, Audubon now 

 turned his attention to the East and determined to follow 

 the migratory birds to their summer homes in the North 

 Atlantic. He left Charleston in early June, 1832, and 

 went to Philadelphia,^ where he remained about a month, 

 waiting, it seems, for his wife and two sons to join him. 

 In a letter to Edward Harris, dated at Philadelphia, 

 June 9, 1832, he said that he had left the "National 

 hotel, on account of the too high price, I found I would 

 have to pay there, and removed to Camden, at a Mr. 



^ It was possibly during his visit to this city that an experiment was 

 made in bringing out some of his plates by lithography. Two copies of 

 a large plate, possibly the only one produced, lithographed without colors, 

 were shown to me by Mr. Goodspeed, of Boston, in the summer of 1910; 

 these represented the "RaUus crepitans — Marsh Hen," and bore the follow- 

 ing legends: "By John J. Audubon, F.R.S., &c., &c.," and "Drawn & 

 Printed by Childs & Inman, Philadelphia, 1832." Three birds are here 

 figured in place of the two which appear in the plate of this species which 

 Havell later engraved, and in composition the two publications are quite 

 distinct. 



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