Free The Duchess Who Wouldn't Sit Down by Jesse Browner

decided to cash in
     his chips and head back to the States. For Rafinesque, Sicily had become a land of "fruitful soil, delightful climate, excellent
     productions, perfidious men, deceitful women."
    On November 2, 1815, his ship lost its keel off Race Rocks, at the eastern end of Long Island. "I had lost every thing, my
     fortune, my share of the cargo, my collections and labors for 20 years past, my books, my manuscripts, my drawings, even my
     clothes . . . I walked to New London." He eventually found his way to New York, where he worked for a time as private tutor
     to the Livingston family in Clermont. But it was the opening West, with its uncounted new species of plants and fish, that
     held his fascination. Traveling almost exclusively by foot through New York state, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania,
     he gradually made his way to Kentucky, where an old family friend recommended him for a job as professor of natural history
     and modern languages at Transylvania University, in Lexington. It was to this, the sole of the many academic posts to which
     he applied that he was ever appointed to, that he was headed when he stopped off in Henderson. If anyone in the world needed
     a helping hand and a sympathetic ear in the wilderness, it was Rafinesque.
    He was warmly welcomed into the modest but respectable Audubon log cabin, which was only too well accustomed to accommodating
     travelers and itinerant family members. He amused the occupants by refusing to change his filthy clothes and by his very apparent
     reluctance to wash before dinner. Upon examining Audubon's drawings, he categorically refused to believe that one plant depicted
     therein really existed until Audubon led him to the riverbank to observe the original. When convinced, he danced with joy,
     hugged Audubon, and there and then declared the discovery of a new genus. Still, despite the visitor's eccentricities, Audubon
     claims to have found him charming and erudite. "I listened to him with as much delight as Telemachus could have listened to
     Mentor."
    Late on the night of Rafinesque's arrival, when all but Audubon were asleep, the household was disturbed by an almighty racket
     coming from the naturalist's room. Audubon rushed to the scene of the commotion:
    I saw my guest running about the room naked, holding the handle of my favorite violin, the body of which he had battered to
     pieces against the walls in attempting to kill the bats which had entered by the open window, probably attracted by the insects
     flying around his candle. I stood amazed, but he continued jumping and running round and round, until he was fairly exhausted,
     when he begged me to procure one of the animals for him, as he felt convinced they belonged to "a new species." Although I
     was convinced of the contrary, I took up the bow of my demolished Cremona, and administering a smart tap to each of the bats
     as it came up, soon got specimens enough. The war ended, I again bade him good night, but could not help observing the state
     of the room. It was strewed with plants, which it would seem he had arranged into groups, but which were now scattered about
     in confusion. "Never mind, Mr AUDUBON," quoth the eccentric naturalist, "never mind, I'll soon arrange them again. I have
     the bats, and that's enough."
    Over the next few days, the men went their separate ways, Audubon attending to his store and birds, Rafinesque searching the
     woods for plants. When Rafinesque expressed his desire to see an authentic canebrake, Audubon was unable to resist the opportunity
     to avenge his destroyed Cremona. He had clearly sized up his guest as an inadequate woodsman, wholly unsuited to exploring
     dense and dangerous canebrakes, "the usual mode of passing through [which] is by pushing one's self backward, and wedging
     a way between the stems." He led Rafinesque to the densest canebrake in the vicinity. When Rafinesque fled and collapsed in
     terror at the appearance of a bear, Audubon