Audubon and His Journals, Volume 1Audubon, John James
History
Audubon and His Journals, Volume 1
Audubon, John James
Audubon, John James, 1785-1851 -- Diaries; Birds -- North America; Naturalists -- United States -- Diaries
mountain, and there beautiful public grounds, monuments, the sea, the
landscape around, all wonderfully put together indeed; it would
require fifty different views at least to give a true idea, but I will
try from day to day to describe what I may see, either in the old or
new part of the town. I unpacked my birds and looked at them with
pleasure, and yet with a considerable degree of fear that they would
never be published. I felt very much alone, and many dark thoughts
came across my mind; I felt one of those terrible attacks of
depression to which I so often fall a prey overtaking me, and I forced
myself to go out to destroy the painful gloom that I dread at all
times, and of which I am sometimes absolutely afraid. After a good
walk I returned more at ease, and looked at a pair of stuffed
pheasants on a large buffet in my present sitting-room, at the sweetly
scented geraniums opposite to them, the black hair-cloth sofa and
chairs, the little cherubs on the mantelpiece, the painted landscape
on my right hand, and the mirror on my left, in which I saw not only
my own face, but such strong resemblance to that of my venerated
father that I almost imagined it was he that I saw; the thoughts of my
mother came to me, my sister, my young days,--all was at hand, yet how
far away. Ah! how far is even the last moment, that is never to return
again.
_Edinburgh, October 27, 1826._ I visited the market this morning, but
to go to it I first crossed the New Town into the Old, over the north
bridge, went down many flights of winding steps, and when at the
desired spot was positively _under_ the bridge that has been built to
save the trouble of descending and mounting from one side of Edinburgh
to the other, the city being mostly built on the slopes of two long
ranges of high, broken hills. The vegetable market was well arranged,
and looked, as did the sections for meats and fruits, attractive; but
the situation, and the narrow booths in which the articles were
exhibited, was, compared with the Liverpool market, nothing. I
ascended the stairs leading to the New Town, and after turning to the
right, saw before me the monument in honor of Nelson, to which I
walked. Its elevated situation, the broken, rocky way along which I
went, made it very picturesque; but a tremendous shower of rain
accompanied by a heavy gust of cold wind made me hurry from the spot
before I had satisfied myself, and I returned _home_ to breakfast. I
was struck with the resemblance of the women of the lower classes to
our Indian squaws. Their walk is precisely the same, and their mode of
carrying burdens also; they have a leather strap passed over the
forehead attached to large baskets without covers, and waddle through
the streets, just like the Shawanees, for instance. Their complexion,
if fair, is beyond rosy, partaking, indeed, of purple--dull, and
disagreeable. If dark, they are dark indeed. Many of the men wear long
whiskers and beards, and are extremely uncouth in manners, and still
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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