It was a hot and sultry day when our wanderers landed at Bayou Sara,[285] a small settlement at the junction of the sluggish stream which bears that name and the Mississippi, and proceeded to climb to St. Francisville, the village a mile away on the hill. Mrs. Pirrie, who seems to have preceded the travelers by carriage, sent some of her servants to relieve them of their luggage, which Audubon said they found light. They rested in the village at the house of Mr. Benjamin Swift, where they were invited to stay to dinner, then at the point of being served, but feeling somewhat ill at ease, they thanked their host and again took to the road. Following their leisurely guides, they now traversed a country so new, so strange, and so enchanting, that the five miles to the Pirrie house seemed short indeed. "The rich magnolias, covered with fragrant blossoms, the holly, the beech, the tall yellow poplar, the hilly ground, and even the red clay," to quote Audubon's record made at the time, "all excited my admiration. Such an entire change in the face of nature, in so short a time, seems almost supernatural, and surrounded once more by numerous warblers and thrushes, I enjoyed the scene." [Illustration: BAYOU SARA LANDING, WEST FELICIANA PARISH, LOUISIANA, AT THE JUNCTION OF BAYOU SARA AND THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.] [Illustration: SCENE ON BAYOU SARA CREEK, AUDUBON'S HUNTING GROUND IN 1821. This and the above after photographs by Mr. Stanley Clisby Arthur, 1916.] In passing up the Mississippi from New Orleans, the topography of the country suddenly changes at about this point; in the parish of West Feliciana the alluvial lowlands of the river valley give place to beautiful highlands, which still harbor as rich and distinctive a flora and fauna as in Audubon's day. Following Audubon's course in June, 1916, or ninety-five years later, Mr. Arthur found the region about St. Francisville wonderfully rich in birds, and there noted seventy-eight resident kinds which were seen on the same day, from shortly before noon to seven o'clock in the evening. Upon reaching the plantation house, Audubon and his companion were kindly received by the Scotchman, James Pirrie, who introduced to them his daughter, Eliza, then a beautiful and talented girl of seventeen—"my lovely Miss Pirrie, of Oakley," as Audubon once characterized her in his journal—who was to become his pupil in drawing, and who, as after events proved, was destined to a romantic and checkered career.