The Audubon Reader (86 page)

The bison is spoken of by [sixteenth-century Spanish naturalist Dr. Francisco] Hernandez as being found in New Spain or
Mexico, and it probably extended farther south. [Eighteenth-century American explorer]
John Lawson speaks of two buffaloes that were killed in one season on
Cape Fear River in North Carolina. The bison formerly existed in South Carolina on the seaboard, and we were informed that from the last herd seen in that state, two were killed in the vicinity of Columbia. It thus appears that at one period this animal ranged over nearly the whole of North America.

At the present time, the buffalo is found in vast herds in some of the great prairies and scattered more sparsely nearly over the whole length and breadth of the valleys east and west that adjoin the Rocky Mountain chain.

Minnie’s Land, New York

12 November 1843

My dear Bachman,

I reached my happy home this day week last at 3 o’clock and found all well. The next day Victor handed me your letter of the 1st Instant, to which I will now answer as much as I can do in the absence of my cargo of skins, &c., which I trust will be at home early next week. Now, friend, we were never out of sight of the coffee pot, feather beds or white faces, and never failed in our being hungry and thirsty! Nay not even while on the prairies feeding on the juicy ribs or humps of the bison. Harris stood the journey quite well but lost flesh and weight. I gained 22 pounds and am as fat as a
grizzly bear in good season. Harris would have been better had he given up taking physic almost every day. The rest of my party got on well enough, and when we meet I will then say more on this subject.

I have no less than 14 new species of birds, perhaps a few more, and I hope that will in a great measure defray my terribly heavy expenses. The variety of quadrupeds is small in the country we visited, and I fear that I have not more than 3 or 4 new ones. I have brought home alive a deer which we all think will prove new. I have also a live
badger and a swift
fox. I have first-rate skins in pickle of the buffalo bull, cow and calves.
Elks,
bighorn antelopes,
black-tailed deer, the deer I have alive and sundry wolves. I have
Townsend’s hare,
Tamias quadrivitatus
, prairie marmots (prairie dog so-called), a fine grizzly bear, &c., but I have no list. I have written much and taken ample and minute measurements of everything.

I have a large collection of dried plants, principally flowers, and an abundance of precious seeds, one or 2 fishes, but there are no shells in the streams of the country we have visited.

You wish me to go to you but this is impossible. As soon as my collections reach me I will draw first all the birds, that they may
be added to my present publication, and then 30 or 40 species of quadrupeds. I have brought home good sketches of scenery, drawings of flowers and also of the heads of antelopes, bighorns, wolves and buffalos.

I am most heartily glad to hear that you are all well, and that is the case with us also.

I came home with a beard and mustachios of 7 months’ growth, and Johnny has painted my head as it was, for I am now shaved and much as usual except in fatness which is almost disagreeable to me.

Now that I am in the lap of comfort and without the hard and continued exercise so lately my lot, I feel somewhat lazy and disinclined even to write a long letter. I tried to copy my last journal yesterday but could not write more than one hour, and yet I must do that as soon as possible as no man on earth can do it for me. In a few days my things will be here and I will send you a catalog of what I have. By the way, I think that I have a new
porcupine
—nous verrons
[i.e., we will see]. I have the best account of the habits of the buffalo, beaver, antelopes, bighorns, &c., that were ever written and a great deal of information of divers nature. Now remember me most kindly to every member of your dear family. I wrote to Maria from St. Louis. She must have received my letter. Remember me to Dr. Wilson and all other friends …

Minnie’s Land, New York

11 March 1845

My dear Lincoln,

I suppose you have not thought of me for some years, at least I might judge so from your not having answered my last letter from Charleston in 1840. But I will not let you drop on my part, as I want your assistance for the procuring of specimens of the quadrupeds of our country and for information in regard to the habits of such as you have about you or a knowledge of, or any anecdotes relative to, the subject. The animals we want are
caribou—male and female & young. Black and white
foxes—silver gray. Black and white
bears—some of your fishermen might come across the latter on the coast of Labrador, very far north. He would keep it opened, without skinning, and covered with salt about 1 foot thick and renewing it once or twice. We would gladly pay the expenses of such an experiment and a fair price for the animal. Perhaps a caribou could be sent to us in a large box filled with salt.

Since our happy trip to Labrador a great many changes have taken place in our family. My father is an old man and my mother quite gray, in fact a white hair is now and then to be seen among my own dark crop. My
children, thrice little girls, two of my first wife’s and one of my present wife, are from one and a half to six and a half years old. Brother has a little one by his second wife and we are all in the same house with Mamma as the head of the family affairs and our two wives living with us as her children.

I hope you will soon answer this and give me some account of your life, for the last 5 or 6 years I have had only an occasional bit of news from Shattuck—now Dr. Shattuck. You will greatly oblige us by giving us as full histories of the animals you have about you as you can get or know already, also the mode of hunting or procuring them. The number taken, etc. In short, everything you think of interest to those desirous of information of any natural history subject. After so long an absence I cannot send regards,
remembrances to anybody in your family or to those I knew at Eastport. Have you ever found a lady who could split rails and play a concerto? Goodbye. “For auld langsyne,” let me hear from you …

Minnie’s Land, New York

11 May 1848

… The girls say that they have heard “the music of the minstrel’s nose.” As I sit on an armchair with my feet on the hot fender this chilly evening, I am half inclined to think that they were, in part, right, for I feel a little drowsy just now. I had better try to shake off lethargy by writing a few lines home. But how shall I collect my thoughts amid the din and confusion that prevail around me; yet I like to see these happy faces and hear their merry laugh.

I found all well here as far as health is concerned. Mrs. Audubon is straight as an arrow and in fine health, but sadly worried. John has just come in from feeding his dogs. Audubon has heard his little song sung in French and has gone to bed. Alas, my poor friend Audubon! The outlines of his countenance and his form are there, but his noble mind is all in ruins. I have often, in sadness, contemplated in ruin a home that, in other years, I have seen in order and beauty, but the ruins of a mind once bright and full of imagination, how much more inexpressibly melancholy and gloomy. But why dwell upon these? I turn away from the subject with a feeling of indescribable sadness …

The weather has been rainy for the past four days, but this afternoon it was clear, but quite cold. The spring here is further advanced than I expected to find it, the fruit trees are in full bloom and the grass of a dark green. The woods and the grounds are full of the melody of singing birds. There are not less than twenty wood-robins whose notes can be heard in this vicinity. A red-breast has built a nest in the cherry tree near the piazza; the peewee is building close by, and the robins have found a home here. I, too, would willingly linger, but I must be on the wing. Day after tomorrow
I expect to take the girls with me to New York, during the meeting of Synod. I want them to see a little this great city.

I am working away among the Quadrupeds; and if I had nothing else to do could spend a month here with great satisfaction; but as it is, time is passing and I must soon turn my face homewards. I do not yet know if the girls will decide to return with me.

Mrs. Audubon is going into the city maid-hunting tomorrow morning, and I shall send this letter by her to be posted.

Tell Master John Bachman (Haskell) that these little folk, of all sizes, sit and play all day in my room and do not touch the specimens; if my little restless, roaring, tearing dog was here, he would make the fur fly as well as the heads and the tails. All send love to Aunt Maria and to the girls and boys …

Minnie’s Land, New York

29 January 1849

My dear Aunt Maria,

Your letter of no date was received day before yesterday, and I assure you it was with no ordinary satisfaction that I read it, and I am now more assured of the completion of our hopes and wishes in regard to the letterpress of the
Quadrupeds
than I have been for months past. You will, I know, readily imagine the unpleasant position in which the long delay that has already occurred has placed us, but I must pass over many things connected with this subject which it would only worry you to no purpose to relate to you. I hope the task of completing the work will not prove too irksome to you and to our friend, your husband [Martin had married John Bachman in 1848, after her sister’s death], and can truly say that it will be gratefully remembered by me, and that we all shall try to make him some return one way or another.

My brother will leave us in a few days for California, and I shall have the cares and responsibilities of providing for our large family fully upon me. The duties before me do not alarm, but excite regrets that I shall necessarily be detained from other work a good deal by the supervision of the letterpress, which has so long (when I could easily have last summer spared the time to attend to it) been delayed. Pray excuse this single allusion to the situation in which I am now placed.

The absence of John will be perhaps 18 months or two years, and his journey is undertaken with the hope, based on the intelligence we have been able to obtain, that he will be able to get at least $20,000 worth of the gold! What may be the result only God knows, but we are all willing and as heretofore our family is united in their views of what is best to be done; which is a great comfort to us all. John is accompanied by Col. H. L. Webb, as military leader, and has
Henry Mallory as bookkeeper, & the party consists of about 70 to 80 picked men. They are to go down the Ohio and
Mississippi & across Texas & part of Mexico—via Chihuahua & thence west & northwest to the gold region. Perhaps William Gordon
may
go with them from New Orleans, Jacob Henry Bachman goes along from here …

My poor old father is apparently comfortable, and enjoys his little notions, but has no longer any feeling of interest for any of us and requires the care and attendance of a man. This is the hardest of all to bear among the trials in store for us. My mother is better, and but for a cold she has lately been much troubled with, she would be tolerably comfortable.

Lucy & Harriet are growing finely and are well-educated except a sort of country manner they have. We shall probably call in a
maitre de danse
for them in a short time who will polish them up and improve their
understanding
(a pun meant) at the same time.

I am about to go to Washington to get a letter from the President for John, and I will try to see the collection brought back by the Exploring Expedition including the famous black-tailed deer …

I am in quite a bustle—the office
full
of
Californians …

How often, Good Reader, have I longed to see the day on which my labors should be brought to an end! Many times, when I had laid myself down in the deepest recesses of the western forests, have I been suddenly awakened by the apparition of dismal prospects that have presented themselves to my mind. Now sickness, methought, had seized me with burning hand and hurried me away, in spite of all my fond wishes, from those wild woods in which I had so long lingered to increase my knowledge of the objects which they offered to my view. Poverty, too, at times walked hand in hand with me, and on more than one occasion urged me to cast away my pencils, destroy my drawings, abandon my journals, change my ideas and return to the world. At other times the Red Indian, erect and bold, tortured my ears with horrible yells and threatened to put an end to my existence; or white-skinned murderers aimed their rifles at me. Snakes, loathsome and venomous, entwined my limbs, while vultures, lean and ravenous, looked on with impatience. Once, too, I dreamed when asleep on a sandbar on one of the Florida Keys that a huge shark had me in his jaws and was dragging me into the deep.

But my thoughts were not always of this nature, for at other times my dreams presented pleasing images. The sky was serene, the air perfumed and thousands of melodious notes from birds all unknown to me urged me to arise and go in pursuit of those beautiful and happy creatures. Then I would find myself furnished with large and powerful wings and, cleaving the air like an eagle, I would fly off and by a few joyous bounds overtake the objects of my desire. At other times I was gladdened by the sight of my
beloved family, seated by their cheerful fire and anticipating the delight which they should experience on my return. The glorious sun would arise, and as its first rays illumined the earth I would find myself on my feet, and while preparing for the business of the day, I would cheer myself with the pleasing prospect of the happy termination of my labors and hear in fancy the praises which kind friends would freely accord. Many times, indeed, have such thoughts enlivened my spirits; and now, Good Reader, the task is accomplished. In health and in sickness, in adversity and prosperity, in summer and winter, amidst the cheers of friends and the scowls of foes I have depicted the Birds of America, and studied their habits as they roamed at large in their peculiar haunts.