Atlantis and Other Places Read Online Free Page A

paid. The customs official gave him a receipt, which he didn’t want, and the requisite stamp in his passport, which he did. As he and Harris trundled their chattels back to the Maid of Orleans , a small bird flew past them. “Look, John!” Harris said. “Wasn’t that a gray-throated green?”
    Not even the sight of the Atlantean warbler could cheer Audubon. “Well, what if it was?” he said, still mourning the money he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to spend.
    His friend knew what ailed him. “When we get to Avalon, paint a portrait or two,” Harris suggested. “You’ll make it up, and more besides.”
    Audubon shook his head. “I don’t want to do that, dammit.” When thwarted, he could act petulant as a child. “I grudge the time I’d have to spend. Every moment counts. I have not so many days left myself, and the upland honkers . . . Well, who can say if they have any left at all?”
    “They’ll be there.” As usual, Harris radiated confidence.
    “Will they?” Audubon, by contrast, careened from optimism to the slough of despond on no known schedule. At the moment, not least because of the customs man, he was mired in gloom. “When fishermen first found this land, a dozen species of honkers filled it—filled it as buffalo fill the plains of Terranova. Now . . . Now a few may be left in the wildest parts of Atlantis. Or, even as we speak, the last ones may be dying—may already have died!—under an eagle’s claws or the jaws of a pack of wild dogs or to some rude trapper’s shotgun.”
    “The buffalo are starting to go, too,” Harris remarked.
    That only agitated Audubon more. “I must hurry! Hurry, do you hear me?”
    “Well, you can’t go anywhere till the Maid of Orleans sails,” Harris said reasonably.
    “One day soon, a railroad will run from New Marseille to Avalon,” Audubon said. Atlantis was building railroads almost as fast as England: faster than France, faster than any of the new Terranovan republics. But soon was not yet, and he did have to wait for the steamship to head north.
    Passengers left the Maid of Orleans . Beth got off, which made Harris glum. Others came aboard. Longshoremen carried crates and boxes and barrels and bags ashore. Others brought fresh cargo onto the ship. Passengers and longshoremen alike moved too slowly to suit Audubon. Again, he could only fume and pace the mercifully motionless deck. At last, late the next afternoon, the Maid of Orleans steamed towards Avalon.
    She stayed close to shore on the two-and-a-half-day journey. It was one of the most beautiful routes anywhere in the world. Titanic redwoods and sequoias grew almost down to the shore. They rose so tall and straight, they might almost have been the columns of a colossal outdoor cathedral.
    But that cathedral could have been dedicated to puzzlement and confusion. The only trees like the enormous evergreens of Atlantis were those on the Pacific coast of Terranova, far, far away. Why did they thrive here, survive there, and exist nowhere else? Audubon had no more answer than any other naturalist, though he dearly wished for one. That would crown a career! He feared it was a crown he was unlikely to wear.
    The Maid of Orleans passed a small fishing town called Newquay without stopping. Having identified the place on his map, Audubon was pleased when the purser confirmed he’d done it right. “If anything happens to the navigator, sir, I’m sure we’d be in good hands with you,” the man said, and winked to show he didn’t aim to be taken too seriously.
    Audubon gave him a dutiful smile and went back to eyeing the map. Atlantis’ west coast and the east coast of North Terranova a thousand miles away put him in mind of two pieces of a world-sized jigsaw puzzle: their outlines almost fit together. The same was true for the bulge of Brazil in South Terranova and the indentation in West Africa’s coastline on the other side of the Atlantic. And the shape of Atlantis’ eastern coast