Four-and-a-Half Months’ Stay in New Harmony
Description of the region – Natural history – Messrs. Say, Lesueur, and Owen – Hunting excursions in Indiana and Illinois – Wabash, Fox River – Illinois prairies – Albion – Black River – Mr. Bodmer’s trip to New Orleans
February 14, 1833
In the morning the sky only very slightly overcast; at seven thirty, temperature of -4 3/4°R [21.3°F, -5.9°C]. The tall forests bordering the Wabash [and] the fruit trees in the gardens and fields of Harmony were all covered with ice crystals or heavy hoarfrost. We worked at home. At twelve o’clock, 0°R [32°F, 0°C]. I settled my account with Arthur.
During a walk in the afternoon, I found that the creek had flooded the briars (blackberry bushes), so that one could not get close to the ducks there. Achilles, who waded in the water, shot a female mallard, but he could not reach the male, which had also been hit. I saw only small birds, [then] an entire flight of bluebirds (Sylvia sialis) in Mr. Maclure’s orchard. At two o’clock the fields were very muddy. I tracked a little hare in the soft ground. The river is high. People were hard at work on the flatboats, some of which are by now ready to depart and completely loaded with barrels and other objects. They are rectangular crates with a very low, flat arched roof. The flatboats rise only a few feet above the water. A pig had made its childbed in the thorns; its six young must be one to two days old at the most. It had made a bed out of twigs and brushwood and seemed willing to accept me when I came close. Many cattle and pigs roam around in these fields. I spent the evening at Mr. Lesueur’s, where we perused Férussac’s Bulletin des sciences naturelles, which had recently arrived from France. It snowed heavily.