Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/708

690 self. Taking a walk in the outskirts of Philadelphia the morning after his arrival, he noticed a common greenbrier (Smilax rotundifolia). "Egad!" said he to himself, "there is a passion-flower"; and he plucked some branches of it, which he brought home for inquiry. His fellow-boarders could not satisfy him, but referred him to a certain Prof. Barton, a great botanist, whose residence was near. With his treasured branch in his hand, Nuttall called at once upon Prof. Benjamin S. Barton, who received him courteously and pointed out the difference between the genera Smilax and Passiflora. Then, perceiving the intelligence of the young man. Prof. Barton went on to tell him some of the general principles of botany and how much pleasure could be derived from its pursuit. This conversation made Nuttall a botanist, and Barton became his friend and patron. It was then early spring, and throughout the season of flowers he took frequent rambles over the neighboring fields, eagerly gathering specimens, which he brought to Barton, studying them with him and preparing them for the herbarium. Soon he began to extend his excursions, going first down into the lower part of the peninsula between the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, and later to the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina. When occupied with his favorite pursuit, serious discomfort could not distract him. At one time, while collecting in the southern swamps, his face and hands became covered with mosquito bites, so that when he approached a human habitation the people of the house would not at first admit him, believing that he had the smallpox, and it was with great difficulty that he convinced them of the contrary.

Returning from this trip, he made the acquaintance of Mr. John Bradbury, a Scotch naturalist, who had come to America to collect objects of natural history in the interior. Nuttall eagerly offered to accompany Bradbury, and his proposition was accepted. Proceeding to St. Louis, they set out from that city on the last day of December, 1809, crossed the Kansas and Platte Rivers, passed through the Mandan villages, where Lewis and Clarke had spent the winter of 1804-'05, and ascended the Missouri River still higher, returning after an experience full of the greatest fatigues and dangers. They were pursued and robbed by the Indians, and Bradbury, who was captured by them, only saved himself from being killed by taking his watch to pieces and distributing the works among them. Nuttall, overcome by fatigue and hunger in the wilderness, laid himself down to die, but was found by a friendly Indian, who took him in his canoe down the Missouri to the first settlement of white men. In spite of these misadventures, he was able to bring with him on his return, in the beginning of 1811, ample treasures of seeds, plants, minerals, and other natural objects.