34 JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 
habited and only the coarsest goods 
were in demand. To procure food the 
merchants had to resort to fishing and 
hunting. They employed a clerk who 
proved a good shot; he and Audubon 
supplied the table while Rozier again 
stood behind the counter. 
How long the Hendersonville enter- 
prise lasted we do not know. Another 
change was finally determined upon, and 
the next glimpse we get of Audubon, we 
see him with his clerk and partner and 
their remaining stock in trade, consisting 
of three hundred barrels of whiskey, 
sundry dry goods and powder, on board 
a keel boat making their way down the 
Ohio, in a severe snow storm, toward 
St. Geneviéve, a settlement on the Mis- 
sissippi River, where they proposed to 
try again. The boat is steered by a long 
oar, about sixty feet in length, made of 
the trunk of a slender tree, and shaped 
at its outer extremity like the fin of a 
dolphin ; four oars in the bow propelled 
