192 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
were, the rains drenched us to the skin, and our clothing was 
so saturated that it took many hours to dry. At night when 
it was clear, we continued our course down the river, but, in 
bad weather, or when very cloudy and dark, we were obliged 
to tie up to the shore, frequently to the bank of some wild, 
uninhabited island, and wait there for daylight; then we would 
resume our slow, tedious and seemingly never ending journey. 
Added to these hardships, our boat was commanded by a most 
disagreeable and ungentlemanly captain, named Harris; his 
language, and demeanor marked him as a person of low birth 
and bad character. 
Among some of the places which were passed en route, I 
remember the following: Wheeling, Marietta, Market Slough, 
famous for the conspiracy of Colonel Burr, Belleville, Litards 
Falls, Point Pleasant, Manchester, Maysville, Cincinnati, and 
finally our journey’s end, Louisville. 
At Louisville the partners were attracted by the 
country and its prospects, as well as by the hospitable 
character of the people. Their choice, as they then 
thought, had been well made, and they decided to make 
it their future home. ‘We marked Louisville,” said 
Audubon, “as a spot designed by nature to become a 
place of great importance, and had we been as wise as 
we now are, I might never have published The Birds of 
America; for a few hundred dollars laid out, at that 
period, in lands or town lots near Louisville, would, if 
left to grow over with grass to a date ten years past 
[this being 1835], have become an immense fortune, but 
young heads are on young shoulders; it was not to be, 
and who cares.” ® 
Rozier did not say when either they or their goods 
reached the pioneer settlement, but from an item in 
5Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and his Journals (Bibl. No. 86), 
vol. i, p. 28. 
