March 21. "Went out this afternoon shooting with Mr. A. Saw a number of Sandhill cranes. Pigeons numerous."
Finally, in winding up the record of his visit to Louisville, he says, with palpable inconsistency, not to say falsehood, that he did not receive one act of civility there, nor see one new bird, and found no naturalist to keep him company.
Some years afterward, Audubon hunted him up in Philadelphia, and found him drawing a white headed eagle. He was civil, and showed Audubon some attention, but "spoke not of birds or drawings."
Wilson was of a nature far less open and generous than was Audubon. It is evident that he looked upon the latter as his rival, and was jealous of his superior talents; for superior they were in many ways. Audubon's drawings have far more spirit and artistic excellence, and his text shows far more enthusiasm and hearty affiliation with Nature. In accuracy of observation, Wilson is fully his equal, if not his superior.
As Audubon had deserted his business, his business soon deserted him; he and his partner soon became discouraged (we hear no more about the riches Rozier had acquired), and resolved upon moving their goods to Hendersonville, Kentucky, over one hundred miles further down the Ohio. Mrs. Audubon and her baby son were sent back to her father's at Fatland Ford where they remained upwards of a year.
Business at Hendersonville proved dull; the country was but thinly inhabited and only the coarsest goods were in demand. To procure food the merchants had to resort to fishing and hunting. They employed a clerk who proved a good shot; he and Audubon supplied the table while Rozier again stood behind the counter.
How long the Hendersonville enterprise lasted we do not know. Another change was finally determined upon, and the next glimpse we get of Audubon, we see him with his clerk and partner and their remaining stock in trade, consisting of three hundred barrels of whiskey, sundry dry goods and powder, on board a keel boat making their way down the Ohio, in a severe snow storm, toward St. Geneviève, a settlement on the Mississippi River, where they proposed to try again. The boat is steered by a long oar, about sixty feet in length, made of the trunk of a slender tree, and shaped at its outer extremity like the fin of a dolphin; four oars in the bow propelled her, and with the current they made about five miles an hour.
Mrs. Audubon, who seems to have returned from her father's, with her baby, or babies, was left behind at Hendersonville with a friend, until the result of the new venture should be determined.
In the course of six weeks, after many delays, and adventures with the ice and the cold, the party reached St. Geneviève.
Audubon has given in his journal a very vivid and interesting account of this journey. At St. Geneviève, the whiskey was in great demand, and what had cost them twenty-five cents a gallon, was sold for two dollars. But Audubon soon became discouraged with the place and longed to be back in Hendersonville with his family. He did not like the low bred French-Canadians, who made up most of the population of the settlement. He sold out his interest in the business to his partner, who liked the place and the people, and here the two parted company. Audubon purchased a fine horse and started over the prairies on his return trip to Hendersonville.