July 11, 1834
We went aboard the steamboat Burlington early, reached Bordentown, and [then], on the railroad, [South] Amboy. On this occasion, it was the steamboat Swan that took us aboard, a nice ship, and in good time we arrived again in New York.
Our tasks here had piled up, but the Messrs. Gebhard and Schuchart assisted us in every respect in reaching our ultimate goal. Mr. Iselin was away. Instead, Prussian Consul Schmidt kindly invited us to his comfortable home in Bloomingdale, where we spent a very pleasant day [and] saw Mr. William Astor and his wife. Mr. [John Jacob] Astor, [William’s] father, was in New York, and I made his acquaintance. He was busy constructing a very large inn, built exactly opposite the American Hotel, our home. A massive stone building, it will become an ornament of the city. Mr. Schmidt was kind enough to issue us our passports, including visas from the French consul, because we needed to have them in France.
I saw an interesting sight in Mr. Peale’s museum. He owned a live python from Java (uarsawa [sic]) that swallowed a whole woolen blanket while we were there. For eight days it remained in the body of the animal, [which] finally began to strangle [on it]. [The snake] seemed to be sick [and] to want to bring up the blanket. [It] opened its mouth extremely wide [and] bent its neck. Its muscles under a mighty strain, its neck expanded widely, and finally movement was noticed [in] the thickened part of its body where the blanket was located. Someone pressed on that [area] to help the movement, and [the snake] succeeded in forcing out the blanket, which was [knotted] up in an elongated, thick cone.
Mr. Peale owned several large, live tortoises from the Galapagos Islands; [they] are similar in many respects to the gopher [tortoises] of Florida and Louisiana. He also owned a small, very pretty species of tawny owl; it seemed to me [to be one] not yet [scientifically] described, with white eyebrows above the pointed angle of the forehead [sic]. However, it died during the time of my absence from Philadelphia and was being stuffed. [Mr. Peale’s] collection has much increased during the last year. I found there a pair of condors (Sarcoramphus gryphus) and several [other] interesting animals, as well as very interesting Indian artifacts.
In the bookstores I found various new works—among them Schoolcraft’s very recently completed [account of his] travels to the sources of the Mississippi, which unfortunately would not become available [for purchase?] until a few hours after our departure.
Dr. [Zina] Pitcher, our travel companion on the Ohio Canal, looked me up [in New York] during my absence. He did, however, leave the interesting amphibians he had promised me with Mr. Gebhard, and I received them.
[In discussing our stay] at Philadelphia, I forgot to mention that Mr. Peale had a live horned lizard ([——]) from Arkansas that the young Krumbhaar had brought him from New Orleans. It was actually intended for me. Unfortunately, I did not get it.
I booked passage on the packet boat Havre, Captain Stoddart [commanding], that was to sail on 16 July, so we arranged everything for the impending voyage. I had sent a letter to Germany with a packet boat [that] sailed eight days earlier; both ships were bound for Le Havre. Our passage [costs] per person came to 140 dollars, which included wine and drinks. Dreidoppel was charged 70 dollars, and my four bears also [cost] 70 dollars. For them I bought a few barrels of biscuit. The Havre was a nice ship, well equipped in every respect.