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JOHN JAMES AUDUBON 47 
lessons, painting birds, and wandering 
about the country, began again. His 
earnings proving inadequate to support 
the family, his wife took a position as 
governess in the family of a Mr. Brand. 
In the spring, acting upon the judg- 
ment of his wife, he concluded to leave 
New Orleans again, and to try his fort- 
unes elsewhere. He paid all his bills 
and took steamer for Natchez, paying 
his passage by drawing a crayon por- 
trait of the captain and his wife. 
On the trip up the Mississippi, two 
hundred of his bird portraits were sorely 
damaged by the breaking of a bottle of 
gunpowder in the chest in which they 
were being conveyed. 
Three times in his career he met with 
disasters to his drawings. On the oc- 
casion of his leaving Hendersonville to 
go to Philadelphia, he had put two 
hundred of his original drawings in a 
wooden box and had left them in charge 
of a friend. On his return, several 
