Under a Wild Sky by William Souder Read Free Book Online

liberty the world over. In three weeks of pleasant sailing “only” three passengers died, an old woman and two children.
    In the middle of the voyage, the Swift passed for two days through a maze of “ice islands.” Wilson was astounded at the size and number of the icebergs. Some were more than twice as high as the ship’s tallest mast. At one time he counted thirty-four of them surrounding the vessel. A steady breeze pushed the ship onward until they got through. But soon after they were hit by a terrific storm—the most violent Wilson had ever seen. A day later, one of the sailors fell overboard. He swam strongly after the ship and came agonizingly close. But despite every effort, the man could not be rescued.
    After fifty days at sea, the Swift entered the calm waters of the DelawareRiver and proceeded to the town of Newcastle, where Wilson and Duncan disembarked and set out on foot for Wilmington. They were “happy as mortals could be” as they walked through a flat, densely wooded country overflowing with unrecognizable vegetation and the calls of many remarkable birds. In Wilmington they asked about work for weavers, but none were needed and they decided to continue on to Philadelphia, another thirty miles upriver. They stopped at farmhouses along the way and were disappointed at finding the residents less welcoming than they had been led to expect. On reaching Philadelphia, they were impressed by the city’s sprawl, which extended some three miles along the western riverbank. But Wilson was distressed to find no more than twenty looms running in a city of nearly fifty thousand inhabitants, where everything was very expensive and there was no demand for journeyman weavers.
    Mulling what to do next, Wilson was meanwhile agape at the richness and natural beauty of the New World. Nothing about it was familiar—not the trees nor the bushes nor the animals. Even the air was different. The midsummer heat and humidity were tremendous—Wilson noticed that just sitting still in trousers and a waistcoat he sweated as he never had before. Like most Europeans, Wilson had believed that America’s oppressive climate, where dense heat alternated with numbing cold, was hostile to wildlife. But walking in the forests around Philadelphia, he and Duncan found themselves in a veritable Garden of Eden. They were amazed at the number of squirrels scampering among the trees, and the size of the snakes sunning themselves by the footpath. They feasted on apples and peaches, delighted to find the local orchards without the high walls and fierce guard dogs encountered in Scotland. Nowhere on earth, Wilson imagined, could anyone find such an “agreeable spot” as Pennsylvania. Wilson could not identify a single one of the many birds they saw, but he was struck by the intensity and variety of their colorations.One day he shot several cardinals in order to make a closer inspection. Holding their warm, scarlet bodies lightly in his hands, Wilson wondered what they were.

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    A NAME FOR EVERY LIVING THING
    Grus americana : The Whooping Crane
    The members of a flock sometimes arrange themselves in the form of an acute-angled triangle; sometimes they move in a long line; again they mingle together without order, or form an extended front; but in whatever manner they advance, each bird sounds his loud note in succession, and on occasions of alarm these birds manifest the same habit.
    â€”Ornithological Biography
    A rriving in America nine years apart, Wilson and Audubon found themselves at the edge of a large, misunderstood continent. Like many of their fellow immigrants, each had come to the New World to get away from difficulties in the Old. Their ambitions, like their backgrounds, were vague. Neither of them could have been described as an artist or a naturalist; neither had aspirations as a scientist. Both would become all of these things. For the time being, they merely increased the