most beautiful. The remainder of our journey was by way of the Ohio, and we made it entirely in an open flatboat, a cumbersome unwieldy craft, managed by hand, and in this particular instance very badly. One who has never had this experience can little understand the terrible monotony, hardships and deprivations encountered on a long journey such as we endured. We were unprotected from the elements, and our beds consisted of bare pine boards, upon which we slept as best we could, enveloped in our great coats. There were times without number when our boat would run upon hidden sand bars to become grounded, and we were then often obliged to get into the cold water and assist in the work of extricating her. At other times, unprotected as we were, the rains drenched us to the skin, and our clothing was so saturated that it took many hours to dry. At night when it was clear, we continued our course down the river, but, in bad weather, or when very cloudy and dark, we were obliged to tie up to the shore, frequently to the bank of some wild, uninhabited island, and wait there for daylight; then we would resume our slow, tedious and seemingly never ending journey. Added to these hardships, our boat was commanded by a most disagreeable and ungentlemanly captain, named Harris; his language, and demeanor marked him as a person of low birth and bad character. Among some of the places which were passed _en route_, I remember the following: Wheeling, Marietta, Market Slough, famous for the conspiracy of Colonel Burr, Belleville, Litards Falls, Point Pleasant, Manchester, Maysville, Cincinnati, and finally our journey's end, Louisville. At Louisville the partners were attracted by the country and its prospects, as well as by the hospitable character of the people. Their choice, as they then thought, had been well made, and they decided to make it their future home. "We marked Louisville," said Audubon, "as a spot designed by nature to become a place of great importance, and had we been as wise as we now are, I might never have published _The Birds of America_; for a few hundred dollars laid out, at that period, in lands or town lots near Louisville, would, if left to grow over with grass to a date ten years past [this being 1835], have become an immense fortune, but young heads are on young shoulders; it was not to be, and who cares."[167]