Читать книгу Matthew Fontaine Maury, the Pathfinder of the Seas онлайн

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On the day of his departure on that Sunday in the spring of 1825, Maury’s father refused to tell him goodbye and turned his back,—it is said, not so much in anger as in sorrow at his leaving home. No doubt the lad’s heart was saddened by this circumstance as well as by the parting from the rest of the family, especially from his favorite brother Richard, only two years his senior, who had always been his inseparable companion. But he put on a brave front, mounted his “snow white steed”, and set forth on the long lonesome ride to Virginia, whence he was to make his way to Washington and there embark on his new career.

The second or third day from home at an inn in East Tennessee, the young traveler fell in with two merchants, Read and Echols, from Huntsville, Alabama, on their way to Baltimore to purchase goods, and in company with these gentlemen he traveled as far as Fincastle, Virginia. Though he greatly enjoyed their company, he was much concerned lest they find out his financial condition, suspect his poverty, and humiliate him by offering him money. His resources were indeed sadly depleted on crossing over into Virginia, where his money had to be exchanged for coin of that state at a ruinous discount of twenty per cent, and when, after a journey of two weeks, he reached the home of his Cousin Reuben Maury near Charlottesville, he had but fifty cents left.