"How many ages may yet elapse before these luxuriant wilds of the Mississippi can enumerate a population equal to the Tartarian deserts! At present all is irksome silence and gloomy solitude, such as to inspire the mind with horror."
In late 1820 and early 1821, John James Audubon traveled by flatboat from Cincinnati to New Orleans. He was already 15 years into his effort to study and draw the birds of America, and he let James Miller, the governor of Arkansas Territory, know of his intention to enter Arkansas for his purpose.
Bad English has got me wistful and nostalgic this morning. For years, I could count on Paul Greenberg to emit a little shriek of horror I m not sure if it was a true reflex or just good theater when I read him a line like the one I just discovered in The Wall Street Journal, in an article about the recent storms in California. Brace yourselves.
Any walk to the west takes me across the 1818 Quapaw Treaty line, which is commemorated in Little Rock by several markers, including one on Third Street.
"I am impressed with how much of my grandparents life depended on continuities, contacts, connections, friendships, and blood relationships. Contrary to the myth, the West was not made entirely by pioneers who had thrown everything away but an ax and a gun."