Travels by William Bartram

...as I was never long satisfied with present possession, however endowed with every possible charm to attract the sight, or intrinsic value to engage and fix the esteem, I was restless to be searching for more, my curiosity being insatiable (54)

I am currently reading Travels by William Bartram. Bartram was the son of noted English botanist and naturalist John Bartram and was the first native-born American naturalist. In 1773, he was commissioned by the British botanist John Fothergill to undertake an expedition through the southeastern portion of the colonies of the Carolinas, Georgia, and northeastern Florida to locate and collect unknown and useful specimens of the "vegetable kingdom." His account of his travels is a compendium of thoughtful travel reportage, poetic musings on nature's sublimity, and an exuberant yet somewhat amateurish description of the terrain, flora and fauna, and European and native inhabitants of the region. Travels was published in Philadelphia in 1791 and became a huge international success. His evocative descriptions caught the fancy of armchair travelers, including the poets Chateaubriand, Coleridge, Emerson and Wordsworth. Interestingly, the introduction to the re-issuance of Travels was written by one James Dickey, author of that American classic Deliverance, which also documented, albeit in a more anthropological manner, the region traversed and discussed by Bartram.

On the American turkey, an especially "painterly" observation:
"I saw here a remarkably large turkey of the native wild breed; his head was above three feet from the ground when he stood erect; he was a stately beautiful bird, of a very dark dusky brown colour, the tips of the feathers of his neck, breast, back, and shoulders, edged with a copper colour, which in a certain exposure looked like burnished gold, and he seemed not insensible of the splendid appearance he made." (39)

On the setting sun:
"The glorious sovereign of day, clothed in light refulgent, rolling on his gilded chariot, hastened to revisit the western realms. Grey pensive eve now admonished us of gloomy night's hasty approach..." (65)

A link to the Library of Congress's copy of Travels: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/vc112.2p2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr052.html&h=1103&w=640&sz=89&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=oy15xWD7xgV_FM:&tbnh=150&tbnw=87&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2522william%2Bbartram%2522%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den