340 AUDUBON, THE NATURALIST 
write letters on the natural history and antiquities of his 
State, and Dr. Beck, the botanist. Failing to find either 
at home, Audubon was compelled by the depleted state 
of his pocketbook to give up his plan of visiting Boston, 
and being determined to see Niagara Falls, he took pas- 
sage on a canal boat to Buffalo instead. The Falls 
were reached on the 24th of August, and it was then, on 
recording his name at an hotel, that Audubon wrote un- 
derneath: “Who, like Wilson, will ramble, but never, 
like that great man, die under the lash of a book- 
seller.” ** Upon his first view of the Falls he was satis- 
fied that Niagara never had been and never could be 
painted. He wanted to cross the bridge at Goat Island 
but was deterred by the necessity of economy. Visitors 
it seems, had already learned to venture under a small 
section of the American Falls, and Audubon said that 
while looking through the falling sheet of water, “at 
their feet thousands of eels were lying side by side, trying 
vainly to ascend the torrent.” After strolling through 
the village to find some bread and milk, the naturalist 
recorded that he ate a good dinner for twelve cents, and 
that he went to bed “thinking of Franklin eating his 
roll in the streets of Philadelphia, of Goldsmith travel- 
ing by the aid of his musical powers, and of other great 
men who had worked their way through hardships and 
difficulties to fame, and fell asleep, hoping, by perse- 
vering industry, to make a name for himself among his 
countrymen.” 
The schooner from Buffalo to Erie, Pennsylvania, 
on which Audubon had taken deck passage, as he was 
unable to afford a berth in the cabin, was caught in a 
violent gale on the way and was obliged to anchor in 
the harbor of Presque Isle. ‘It was on the 29th of Au- 
* See Vol. I, p. 219. 
