AUDUBON'S GREATEST TRIUMPH 183 



evoked the desire to remain until the curtain of night 

 had gradually and peacefully closed the landscape from 

 their view, they proceeded to the rocky shores of Loch 

 Lomond, where they found "a few small stone cabins, 

 some fat bairns, abundance of ale, and a sufficiency of 

 capital whisky." After crossing to Tarbet and exam- 

 ining both the head and the foot of the lake, they went 

 on from Balloch to Dumbarton by stage, and thence by 

 steamer to Glasgow; there they spent a few days, and 

 returned to Edinburgh by way of Dunbarton and La- 

 nark. Steamers and coaches, slow as they then were, 

 were all too fast for Audubon on this journey, and he 

 declared that if ever again he visited the Highlands, 

 it should be on foot, "for no man, with nerve and will, 

 and an admirer of the beauties of nature, can ever truly 

 enjoy the pleasures of travelling, unless he proceed in 

 this manner." 



Mrs. Audubon's health had not improved by the 

 journey, for shortly after their return she was again 

 taken ill ; she was placed in the care of Dr. John Argyle 

 Robertson, for whose efficient aid and "kind and gentle 

 treatment," s^id Audubon, "we can never cease to cher- 

 ish the most lively feelings of aiFection." "It is a curious 

 part of my history," he continues, "that during the 

 whole of my sojourn in Britain, none of the principal 

 medical advisers whom we had occasion to employ would 

 receive any recompense from us." 



By the 5th of November, 1838, but a few days after 

 the issue of the fourth volume of his "Biographies," the 

 printing of the fifth and last had already begun. The 

 following letter ^ is interesting for its personal details, 

 and in showing that his confidence in the existence of 

 the "bird of Washington" ^ had not been shaken: 



»See ibid. "See Vol. I, p. 241. 



