In still another letter, of February 10, Audubon said:
That your kind mother should feel great reluctance in the premises, does not astonish me, as my own good Wife was much against my going on so long a Journey; but her Strong Sense of what is best for us all, and as well as in myself, the perfect confidence that our Maker's Will will be done, she has now no Scruples of any kind, and as for myself I rely as much as I ever have done in the Support of the Almighty Being who has supported and secured me against evils of all sorts in my Various undertakings, and with this Idea at my heart, I feel confident that although an Old Man, I could undertake any Journey whatever, and no matter of their lengths or difficulties. But I wish you would assure your good mother that to go to Yellow Stone River, in a good Steamer, as passengers by the courteous offers of the President of the American Fur Company who himself will go along with us, that the difficulties that existed some 30 years ago in such undertakings are now rendered as Smooth and easy as it is to go to Carlisle and return to N. Y. as many times as would make up the Sum in Miles of about 3000: Our difficulties (if any there are) will be felt on our return; when we must come back to St. Louis in one or 2 open boats in Sepr and part of Octr next. The passage being longer or shorter accordingly with the state of the Missouri at that Season.[192]
Young Baird would gladly have accompanied Audubon, but the fears of his friends for his health and safety interposed, and the party as eventually made up comprised, beside the naturalist, John G. Bell, as taxidermist, Isaac Sprague, artist, Lewis Squires, general assistant and secretary, and his old friend Edward Harris.
Audubon left his home on March 11, 1843, with Victor, who accompanied him as far as Philadelphia, where a rendezvous was made before starting west. The party went first to Baltimore, and by steam cars to Cumberland, then by coach through the Gap, and across the Alleghanies to Wheeling, where a steamer took them down river to Cincinnati. On March 19 they reached Louisville, where Audubon spent four days with his brother-in-law, William G. Bakewell, and on the 28th they arrived at St. Louis, where the party completed their outfit. On April 25 they began their ascent to the Missouri, in the steamer Magnet, a small vessel belonging to the American Fur Company, with a motley crowd of trappers, employed by the Company, representing French creoles, Canadian French, Indians, and other nationalities.
During this journey, which lasted eight months, Audubon kept a voluminous journal, which was written in a fine hand on large sheets of linen paper that could be easily rolled and carried in his pocket; this was afterwards sent to Bachman, was returned, and was lost for fifty years, or until 1896, when it was recovered from an old secretary by Audubon's granddaughters, one of whom published it in 1898.[193] It is a highly interesting and spirited narrative from beginning to end, and abounds in graphic pictures of the Indians and trappers, the military posts and pioneer settlements, the abundant bird life and big game, the biggest of which, the buffalo, was then seen by Audubon in a state of nature for the first time, the grand and turbulent rivers, and the smiling or frowning face of the great wilderness so soon to be changed by the devastating hands of civilized man.
What Audubon thought to be a new finch, discovered near the Snake Hills in Missouri, was named for Edward Harris, and though it proved to have been previously described, the bird is still known as "Harris' Finch"; a few days later a new vireo, Vireo bellii, received the name of John G. Bell, his taxidermist, and similar honors were passed to artist Isaac Sprague, to whom was dedicated the little titlark, Alauda spragueii, now Anthus spraguei.
In those days of river navigation, the frequent tying up for fuel or necessary repairs, not to speak of grounding in a treacherous channel, gave almost daily opportunities for the hunters to go ashore, and these occasions seldom failed to produce something interesting, new, or rare. In the Indian country, at Bellevue, Nebraska, where they touched to land a part of their cargo, Audubon "saw a trick of the trade, which made him laugh. Eight cords of wood were paid for with five tin cups of sugar and three of coffee—value at St. Louis about twenty-five cents."
They began to meet with buffalo about the mouth of the James River, in South Dakota, on May 20; the ground, said Audubon, was literally covered with their tracks, and the bushes with their hair. On the same day they discovered "Meadow Larks whose songs and single notes were quite different from those of the Eastern States," and this proved to be the first notice of the Western Meadow Lark, which later appeared as the Sturnella neglecta in the small edition of his Birds of America, then in course of publication.
Audubon's opinion of the Indian was modified considerably after having seen him in the western wilderness, and his confidence in George Catlin's descriptions was completely shattered; "His book," he said, "must, after all, be altogether a humbug. Poor devil! I pity him from the bottom of my soul; had he studied, and kept up to the old French proverb that says, 'Bon Renommé vaut mieux que ceinture doré,' he might have become an honest man—the quintessence of God's works."
After forty-eight days and seven hours out of St. Louis, on the 12th of June, they reached Fort Union, at the mouth of the Yellowstone, where the Omega left them and returned down river. The country proved so interesting that the naturalist remained two months at the fort, where he occupied the room which had been used by Maximilian, Prince of Neuwied, when traveling through the western parts of America ten years before; here Audubon made many drawings. Buffalo were abundant on all sides, and a favorite occupation was shooting wolves from the ramparts of the fort. On June 18 they killed two antelope and two deer before noon, and "immediately after dinner," he said, "the head of the old male was cut off, and I went to work outlining it; first small, with the camera lucida, and then by squares." On the 30th he wrote: "I began drawing at five this morning, and worked almost without cessation till after three, when becoming fatigued for want of practice, I took a short walk, regretting that I could no longer draw twelve or fourteen hours without a pause, or thought of weariness."