The Audubon Reader (77 page)

We returned to our boat through a melee of Indians and blackguards of all sorts. In giving a last glance back we once more noticed a number of horses rambling about the grounds, or tied beneath the few trees that have been spared by the axe. We also saw a liberty pole, erected on the anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto, on the twenty-first of last April, and were informed that a brave tar who rigged the Texan flag on that occasion had been personally rewarded by President Houston with a town lot, a doubloon and the privilege of keeping a ferry across the Buffalo Bayou at the town, where the bayou forks diverge in opposite directions.

May 16
. Departed for
New Washington, where we received kind attentions from Col. James Morgan; crossed San Jacinto Bay to the
Campbell
, and the next day dropped down to Galveston.

May 18
. Left the bar of Galveston, having on board Mr. Crawford, British consul at Tampico, and a Mr. Allen of
New Orleans.

May 24
. Arrived at the S.W. Pass [of the Mississippi River] and proceeded to the Balize and thence to New Orleans, where we arrived in three days.

New Orleans, May 28
. Breakfast with ex-
governor Roman and his delightful family, with Mr.
Edward Harris.

May 31
. We bid adieu to our New Orleans friends, leaving in their care for shipment our collections, clothing, and a dog, Dash, for Mr. W. Bakewell. Harris went up the river, and we [i.e., Audubon and his son John Woodhouse] crossed to Mobile in the steamer
Swan
, paying fare twelve dollars each, and making the trip of one hundred and fifty miles in twenty-one hours. If New Orleans appeared prostrated, Mobile seemed quite dead. We left in the afternoon for Stockton, Alabama, forty-five miles distant, where we were placed in a cart and tumbled and tossed for one hundred and sixty-five miles to Montgomery; fare twenty-three dollars each, miserable road and rascally fare. At Montgomery we took the mail coach, and were much relieved; fare to Columbus twenty-six dollars each. Our traveling companions were without interest, the weather was suffocating and the roads dirty and very rough; we made but three miles an hour for the whole journey, walking up the hills and galloping down them to Augusta and paying a fare of thirteen dollars and fifty cents each, and thence by rail to Charleston for six dollars and seventy-five cents each, distance one hundred and thirty-six miles, and making eight and a half days from New Orleans.

Moorestown, New Jersey

2 July 1837

My dear friends,

Do not believe me forgetful, for although this is the first time I have attempted to write you, I and our beloved children have not ceased to think of you all. I have been busy, aye very much so for the time being, and here I am at Friend Harris’s as [if] by magic. Our beloved Maria wrote to you this day week from Norfolk, and there I might have done the same had I not felt perfectly exhausted. Now indeed I am not yet what I wish to be—quite well—although I think I am
gradually
recovering both my health and my former good spirits. From Norfolk we went to Washington City by steamer, stayed there nearly 2 days. I saw the President and the different heads of the departments and I now have almost concluded in assuring you that the land expedition has not yet sailed [probably a reference to the U.S. Exploring Expedition then being organized in Washington]. I think I have obtained the Savannah Station for Capt. Day, but the captaincy for [Napoleon] Coste must wait awhile. Tell them so should you see them. Should Mr. Poinsett be with you, ask him to have our work taken for West Point; if not with you, pray write to him on the subject. I saw him
and had some converse with him but could not introduce this subject. There is some talk of a National Museum …

Our children left me yesterday morning for New York and the Falls of Niagara, to return by the 12th or 13th Instant to New York, and we will sail on the 16th for England, and I wish you to write to us at New York by the express mail in answer to this.

When you receive this, see at once whether the
Superb
has sailed, and if not, lose not a moment in dividing my collection of Rocky Mountain bird skins as equally as you can and ship the better half by her to Liverpool care of Messrs. Rathbone Brothers and Co. and the other half by the vessel that takes the rummed birds, the
Blue Grosbeak, the large case of books, &c., and the flying squirrels which we altogether forgot to mention. The latter vessel goes to London, and Friend Kunhardt will attend to this part of the job—I ask of you to do so that I may have at least one chance to receive a series of these valuable bird skins.

I have a new and superb
Hawk from Louisiana as large as the
Caracara Eagle and somewhat like it in colors. A new
Downy Woodpecker
from the same state, overlooked by John Bachman, Audubon and all others except young Trudeau. You will shoot it, I have no doubt, and will know it at once by the longer bill and shape of the mandible, both of which are considerably curved. It has a few
yellow
feathers over each eye and is in size between the Downy and Hairy Woodpecker.

Never in my whole life have I enjoyed traveling so much as I have with my beloved daughter. Everything has been new to her senses—hills and dales, trees & fruits, bridges, rail cars and highly fashionable circles have danced before her alternately like so many novelties of Nature and of the world, and her own descriptions of the feelings which have accompanied these transitions are so simple and meantime so truly poetical and
just
, that I have envied her situation a thousand times! She is I believe as happy as she can be after the severe separation she has had to bear from friends & parents ever dear to her. But she will write to you herself & express all this far better than I can do, therefore on to other matters.

News from Mamma have reached me to the 15th of May, all well.
Nicholas Berthoud has not failed [the Panic of 1837 was then in process] but suspended payment and all my concerns then are
safe enough. He wrote me as usual, and John & Maria are at this moment under his roof. I will be there tomorrow evening. I wish you would send me a copy of your paper on the molting of birds by the London ship. Harris is well and sends his very best regards to you all. He is not going to Europe at present …

I hope you got a
Buzzard for me in rum besides the one John shot. I think you will conclude me lucky in my collections, for beyond what I have said above, I will receive 360$ from the Congress Library at New York in a few days and some also from the State of Maryland, and I now hope to carry over with us 600£ in sovereigns!

The
England
is a fine ship and I have already crossed the Atlantic with her Capt. (Waite) and we are not likely to be crowded as there are but few voyageurs nowadays.

I may perhaps not go to Boston, but will write to you once or twice more without however charging you with 75 cents postage. Pickering is yet here, Nuttall is at Boston. Harlan feels very sore at J.B. not having called upon him [Bachman had recently visited Philadelphia], he was, as well as his wife, very kind to Maria and gave her a grand ride to the [Philadelphia] waterworks, hospitals, &c. We have dreadful hot weather and great rains, the vegetation is very backwards, scarcely any fruit of the larger kind this season …

I formed the acquaintance of a gentleman from Matanzas, Cuba, who will send you some flamingos for me. He presented Victor with a thousand splendid cigars, and that reminds me of taking a pinch of snuff! Kisses from you all dearest fair ones would suit me better just now, but alas two years must probably elapse ere I touch your sweet lips!

There is scarcely a dollar of silver in circulation, and the present trashy paper medium is beyond endurance, at every change of state or towns you are obliged to see to what you have and spend or give it away, for in fact it soon becomes useless. Business of all description is at a stand, and it is not everyone who cries in sorrow of Van Buren, I assure you …

New York, New York

8 July 1837

My dearest friends,

I have been here since the 3rd Instant and constantly engaged at arranging our affairs so as to enable me to take over to you as much gold and silver as I possibly can; but indeed the times [are] hard—so hard that I am unable to say how much the sum will be. Whatever it is, I shall insure it.

John & Maria left me at Philadelphia on the 1st and went from this to the Falls of Niagara on the morning of the 3rd (I arrived here in the afternoon of the same day) and I look for them on Wednesday or Thursday next, when they will have to prepare for our voyage, as I have taken our passages on board the
England
, Capt. Waite, and will sail on the 17th for Liverpool. (The 16th being Sunday, when no packets nowadays leave New York.) The
England
is a fine ship, not an old one, and I hope our time on board will not exceed twenty-five days. We are to have some agreeable companions, such as the eldest daughter of old Dr. [Benjamin] Rush, now Mrs. Manners, her daughter, &c., and the famous
Mademoiselle Celeste & crew. The captain has given John and Maria a nice room in the very center of the ship, and as Maria was not seasick when we came from Charleston to Norfolk in a steamer, I hope that she will fare well. He has given me a stateroom to myself very close midship, and seems greatly pleased to have us. We are now 19 passengers. We pay three hundred and fifty dollars; and I go to Liverpool instead of to London, because none of the vessels sailing in this month for England (London) are agreeable to me.

I found dearest Mamma’s letter of the 21st of May in which she tells me not to hurry, but you cannot form any idea of the state of affairs on this side the Atlantic, and to remain here would only be extremely expensive without any benefit whatever. There is no
money, no credit, and I assure you no likelihood of new
subscribers. When John Bachman wrote to you that one hundred [new subscribers] might be obtained, the times were different, and I thought the same when I reached New Orleans, where however I soon discovered that we were both mistaken. But we will talk of all this anon, when I will be able to rest my poor old bones near you both, and with Johnny & his Dear Maria; who is indeed a most excellent and amiable girl, agreeable to everybody to whom she has been presented. We have come to
Nicholas Berthoud’s, where we are very comfortable. Eliza and all of us indeed are quite well, but suffer much in mind on account of the painful state of affairs [i.e., the Panic].

I saw Mr. DeRham yesterday morning, and prevailed on him to take the work; he perhaps will pay a portion of the sum of 660$?

The whole of our effects save our trunk each will be shipped to London on the 20th Instant or on the first of July. I am doing my best to fill up my list of commissions for Mamma and others, but again I am forced to tell you that money is scarcer with me than I anticipated it would be. The exchange for Sovereigns is at 5 Dollars & 45 @ 50 cents—13 percent for silver—I will not trust to bills of exchange, which by the way are terribly high just now.

Tomorrow, Sunday, I will write to you again and give you more details as regards the amount I may take with me, &c., and I will leave a long letter to be forwarded by the packet of the 20th July as perchance she may get to England before us. We have had constant rains since 3 weeks, and the weather is cold and unpleasant. The seeds, plants, &c., did not leave Charleston until the middle of last April, but I hope that they reached safe at last. All friends are well at Charleston …

New York, New York

16 July 1837, Sunday early morning

My dear Bachman & all about you!

Tomorrow morning we will sail for Liverpool in the packet ship the
England
of 733 tons, commanded by Benj. Waite, to whom I have paid 350 dollars for our 3 passages. Our dear children have a fine room to themselves almost in the center of this superb ship, where I hope they will not suffer from seasickness—they have the 2 stewardesses just opposite to them. I have a whole stateroom to myself also, in the large cabin and near the stewards, &c.—all as comfortable as can be wished whilst thus caged on the waves. We are in all 23 passengers, and at the exception of Miss Celeste and band of 4, pretty select—no single young men. We hope for a fine “run” and our captain says that he will land us at Liverpool on the 6th August. May God will it so!

We received your 2 letters by the express mail and are glad to see that you are all well, although our beloved sweet [i.e.,
Maria Martin] complains of headaches—she
must
go a journey this summer, do persuade her to do so for our own sakes. In the way of business I have, considering the times, been I think very fortunate. I carry with me nine hundred and eighty-one Half-Eagles and one hundred and twenty-five Sovereigns, equal to 1,106 pounds sterling. This of course
I have insured
. Now, barring accidents, this sum will suffice us to finish our work with the usual annual collections we make in England, and I leave behind us about 8,000 dollars. I procured a new
subscriber yesterday. I have settled my accounts with my brother-in-law, [Nicholas] Berthoud, in full to the present day; and we will go on as usual as he is willing to be yet my agent here. All this is very gratifying to me, and will I daresay be equally so by yourselves. I leave a few volumes of my work with N. Berthoud and some [
Ornithological
]
Biographies
, and one volume in the hands of
John B. Morris of Baltimore. I have delivered all the rest, and will collect the money when we return to purchase a place
somewhere in our country! N. Berthoud calls me one of the happiest of men—free of debts and having available funds and talents!