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
_Green Bank, September 6._ When I reached this place I was told that
Lady Isabella Douglass, the sister of Lord Selkirk, former governor of
Canada, was here; she is unable to walk, and moves about in a rolling
chair. At dinner I sat between her and Mrs. Rathbone, and I enjoyed
the conversation of Lady Douglass much, her broad Scotch accent is
agreeable to me; and I amused her by eating some tomatoes raw; neither
she, nor any of the company had ever seen them on the table without
being cooked.
_September 9._ Dr. Traill has ordered all my drawings to be packed by
the curator of the Institution, so that has given me no trouble
whatever. It is hard to say farewell to all those in town and country
who have been so kind, so hospitable to me, but to-morrow I leave for
Manchester, where Mr. Roscoe advises me to go next.
_Manchester, County of Lancashire, September 10, 1826._ I must write
something of my coming here. After bidding adieu to many friends, I
went to Dr. Traill, who most kindly insisted on my taking Mr. Munro
with me for two days to assist me, and we left by coach with my
portfolios, my trunk to follow by a slower conveyance. I paid one
pound for our inside seats. I felt depressed at leaving all my good
friends, yet Mr. Munro did all in his power to interest me. He made me
remark Lord Stanley's domains, and I looked on the Hares, Partridges,
and other game with a thought of apprehension that the apparent
freedom and security they enjoyed was very transient. I thought it
more cruel to permit them to grow tame and gentle, and then suddenly
to turn and murder them by thousands, than to give them the fair show
that our game has in our forests, to let them be free and as wild as
nature made them, and to let the hunter pay for them by the pleasure
and work of pursuing them. We stopped, I thought frequently, to renew
the horses, and wherever we stopped a neatly dressed maid offered
cakes, ale, or other refreshments for sale. I remarked little shrubs
in many parts of the meadows that concealed traps for moles and
served as beacons for the persons who caught them. The road was good,
but narrow, the country in a high degree of cultivation. We crossed a
canal conducting from Liverpool here; the sails moving through the
meadows reminded me of Rochester, N.Y. I am, then, now at Manchester,
thirty-eight miles from Liverpool, and nearly six thousand from
Louisiana.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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