62 AUDUBON 



in drawings this season. Forty-two drawings in four 

 months, eleven large, eleven middle size, and twenty-two 

 small, comprising ninety-five birds, from Eagles down- 

 wards, with plants, nests, flowers, and sixty different kinds 

 of eggs. I live alone, see scarcely any one, besides those 

 belonging to the house where I lodge. I rise long before 

 day and work till nightfall, when I take a walk, and to bed. 



" I returned yesterday from Mauch Chunk ; after all, there 

 is nothing perfect but primitiveness, and my efforts at copy- 

 ing nature, like all other things attempted by us poor mor- 

 tals, fall far short of the originals. Few better than myself 

 can appreciate this with more despondency than I do." 



Very shortly after this date Audubon left for Louisiana, 

 crossed the Alleghanies to Pittsburg, down the Ohio by 

 boat to Louisville, where he saw Victor and John. " Dear 

 boys!" he says; "I had not seen Victor for nearly five 

 years, and so much had he changed I hardly knew him, but 

 he recognized me at once. Johnny too had much grown 

 and improved." Remaining with his sons a few days, he 

 again took the boat for Bayou Sara, where he landed in 

 the middle of the night. The journal says : " It was dark, 

 sultry, and I was quite alone. I was aware yellow fever 

 was still raging at St. Francisville, but walked thither 

 to procure a horse. Being only a mile distant, I soon 

 reached it, and entered the open door of a house I knew 

 to be an inn ; all was dark and silent. I called and 

 knocked in vain, it was the abode of Death alone ! The 

 air was putrid; I went to another house, another, and 

 another; everywhere the same state of things existed; 

 doors and windows were all open, but the living had 

 fled. Finally I reached the home of Mr. Niibling, whom 

 I knew. He welcomed me, and lent me his horse, and 

 I went off at a gallop. It was so dark that I soon lost 

 my way, but I cared not, I was about to rejoin my wife, 

 I was in the woods, the woods of Louisiana, my heart was 

 bursting with joy ! The first glimpse of dawn set me on 



