THE F ASSIGN FLOWER 
III 
CHAPTER IX. 
Fassion - fiower — Solitude — ’ V/ oods of America — Native 
Regions of Fassion - flower— Fruits of Fassion - flower 
— Granadilla — Origin of the fiarne of Passion - flower 
— Reverence paid to this Flower on some -parts of the 
Continent. 
“ And the faint passion-flower; the sad and holy, 
Tells of diviner hopes.” 
— Mrs. Hemans. 
To those who are not fond of the wild scenes of nature, 
it may seem strange that Audubon should have chosen 
to dwell among the woods, to watch the birds, to listen 
to their notes, and mark their rising and retiring and 
various habits. Yet he lived among these free creatures 
of air till he regarded them with so strong a sympathy, 
that he imagined them possessed of feelings such as ac- 
tuate the human bosom, and thought, as he lingered 
among the vast solitudes, that the voices which inter- 
rupted the deep stillness, were the morning or evening- 
prayers of the fowls of the wilderness to their Maker. 
Strange, too, will some deem it, that Waterton should 
leave behind the joys of home and country, and spend 
years among the forests of the West, marking each 
living thing with a curious eye, or gazing with delight 
on the magniflcent coronals of flowers which hang about 
the lofty trees, till nature seemed his best companion, 
and he scarcely cared to return to the busy haunts of 
man. But to many an enthusiastic lover of nature, the 
shady woods of our own land have a charm beyond the 
most smiling and fertile scenery, and the students of the 
stern forests of the western hemisphere create an immense 
wish to roam amid their gloomy grandeur: like the lofty 
aisles of old cathedrals, they seem to speak of other- 
days ; for ages must have come and gone since the stately 
trees first sprang from, the earth - — and their shadowy 
arches recall the period when the hapless Indian sought. 
