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
March 5, 1833
Fierce snowstorm, the air completely dreary and darkened by large flakes. At seven thirty, 0°R [32°F, 0°C]. I went out to look for the duck I had wounded yesterday. Young Duclos took me across in a canoe, and on a sandbar I shot a female Anas rufitorques. I did not find the wounded duck but saw many wild geese and cranes, which were moving northeastward. The weather was damp; often rain and snow mixed; raw besides. The small runs and ponds were covered with ice; therefore, ducks could be found only on the Wabash. At twelve o’clock, 3 1/2°R [39.9°F, 4.4°C].
In the afternoon, mostly rain, therefore soggy ground. The backwoodsmen, who rode in today, immediately unsaddled their horses as usual and left them tied up outdoors in the rain all afternoon. Today two such fellows had escaped from the innkeeper without paying their three-day drinking bill. Dreidoppel and Bodmer had gone out hunting at three thirty; they returned at dusk. The former had not shot anything; the latter had shot a mallard and seen many wild geese.
Visit in the evening to Messrs. Twigg and Lesueur. We talked about various noteworthy things in this country, including the many human bones one sees protruding from a hill eroded and partly washed away by the water downstream 15 miles from here along the Wabash. Mr. Lesueur sent an entire skull from this site to Blumenbach. When a tree fell over, he saw a complete skeleton underneath the roots. This area is called Bone Bank.
In addition, we talked about the huge coal-black grasshoppers with red stripes on their heads that are found in New Orleans. They inhabit the white monuments in the cemeteries and adapt themselves perfectly to this place, these black unpleasant creatures in the white graves. There, bodies are buried in the water; for if one digs only two feet deep, the hole is full of water. Numerous lizards, which flit about on the stones, also live there; they belong to the species Annolis bullaris.