When they had reached the borders of Woodruff's Lake, after noon, fatigued and hungry, he continued:
We landed on a small island of a few acres, covered with a grove of sour orange trees, intermixed with not a few live oaks. The oranges were in great profusion on the trees—everything about us was calm and beautiful and motionless, as if it had just come from the hand of the Creator. It would have been a perfect Paradise for a poet, but I was not fit to be in Paradise; the loss of my ibis made me as sour as the oranges that hung about me. I felt unquiet, too, in this singular scene, as if I were almost upon the verge of creation, where realities were tapering off into nothing. The general wildness the eternal labyrinths of waters and marshes, interlocked, and apparently never ending; the whole surrounded by interminable swamps—all these things had a tendency to depress my spirits, notwithstanding some beautiful flowers, rich looking fruits, a pure sky, and ample sheets of water at my feet. Here I am in the Floridas, thought I, a country that received its name from the odours wafted from the orange groves, to the boats of the first discoverers, and which from my childhood I have consecrated in my imagination as the garden of the United States. A garden, where all that is not mud, mud, mud, is sand, sand, sand; where the fruit is so sour that it is not eatable, and where in place of singing birds and golden fishes, you have a species of ibis that you cannot get when you have shot it, and alligators, snakes, and scorpions.
Mr. Bartram was the first to call this a garden, but he is to be forgiven; he was an enthusiastic botanist, and rare plants, in the eyes of such a man, convert a wilderness at once into a garden.
When we had eaten our humble repast at the sweet little Orange Grove Island, we left it "alone with its glory," but not without a name. It was determined, nolens volens, that it should be called Audubon's Island, on the St. John's river. Lat. 29° 42´.
Early in February, 1832, Lieutenant Piercy took Audubon and his assistants aboard the government schooner Spark at St. Augustine, and sailed for the mouth of the St. John's River, which he had orders to ascend in the interests of the Revenue Service. On February 12, when they had reached a point one hundred miles from the mouth of the river, the vessel, being in need of repairs, was suddenly recalled. Audubon, with two men, thereupon engaged a boat and attempted to return to St. Augustine across country, by a short cut to the eastward. They were soon stranded and the party divided. Audubon with his dog and one companion then endeavored to make their way by land to the town, eighteen miles distant, but they were overtaken by a terrific gale and thunder-storm, and in order to keep to the trails were often obliged to grope their way on hands and knees.[16]
At about this time the publishers of the Journal of Geology and Natural Science, from which we have quoted, failed, and Featherstonhaugh, who assumed their debts to all subscribers, was obliged to bring it to a close with the completion of the first volume; Audubon's third and last letter appeared in the valedictory number for June, 1832.
Again the naturalist applied to the government officials at Washington for assistance, and, as the following letter shows, Edward Everett again came to his aid, as did also Levi Woodbury, Secretary of the Navy, to whom Audubon later received a personal introduction from Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court:
Levi Woodbury to Louis McLane
Navy Department
February 24 1832
Sir,