Under a Wild Sky by William Souder

Author:William Souder [Souder, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781571319234
Publisher: Milkweed Editions

In the spring of 1826, Audubon was at last ready to go. He packed up more than four hundred drawings, put $1,600 of his and Lucy’s savings into his pocketbook, and headed off to New Orleans to find a ship to England. Lucy, supportive but perhaps irked at the prospect of yet another long separation, earmarked part of the money for a new piano Audubon was to send home. He bought passage on the Delos. Having some time before the ship was ready to depart, Audubon screwed up his courage and made several calls to ask for references. He got in to see the governor, who wrote up a general letter of introduction, exaggerating the length of Audubon’s residence in Louisiana while offering a slight understatement of Audubon’s life’s work, which the governor characterized as “procuring drawings and preparing manuscripts in relation to the birds of America.”

More valuable still was a letter of introduction Audubon received from a rich merchant named Vincent Nolte—the very same Vincent Nolte who had chuckled at his horse Barro when the two men met in the wilds of Pennsylvania more than a decade earlier. Audubon had seen Nolte on the street when he first got to New Orleans with Joseph Mason, but had avoided him out of embarrassment. Nolte was wealthy and powerful and busy, and Audubon had been ashamed to be none of those things. Then one day, as the two men passed each other and Audubon tried to hide his face, Nolte had stopped and seized Audubon by the hands. Nolte told him to stop being ridiculous—he was more than glad to see him. Nolte insisted Audubon bring his portfolio around, and when he did, Nolte heaped praise on the drawings and, delighted to see Audubon after several years, said he was eager to be of service. He now gave Audubon two letters of introduction. By far the more valuable of the two was addressed to a Mr. Richard Rathbone, a prominent cotton importer in Liverpool.

On May 17, 1826, at seven o’clock in the evening, a steam-driven tender pulled alongside the Delos, put a line on her, and for the next ten hours towed her down through the Mississippi Delta and out into the Gulf of Mexico. Once clear of land, the ship began to roll and Audubon was immediately seasick. While he stayed up on deck to settle his stomach, Audubon diverted himself by drawing an almost perfect replica of the state seal of Louisiana on his letter from the governor.

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