--^^^^l^ffla^^tr. 



>^0oo 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



Excursion South — Starts in Cutter for Galveston Bay^ Texas — Bara- 

 taria Bay — Great Htmting Excursion with a Squatter — Notes in 

 Texas — Wretched Population — Buffalo Bayou — Texan Capitol 

 and Houses of Congress — Reaches New Orleans — Charleston — In 

 England Again — Literary Labors — Back to America. 



HARLESTON, S. C, November 17, 1836. We 

 arrived here last evening, after an irksome and fa- 

 tiguing journey, and seemingly very slowly per- 

 formed, in my anxiety to reach a resting place, where 

 friendship and love would combine to render our time 

 happy, and the prosecution of our labor pleasant. We were 

 hungry, thirsty, and dusty as ever two men could be ; but 

 we found our dear friends all well, tears of joy ran from 

 their eyes, and we embraced the whole of them as if born 

 from one mother. John Bachman was absent from home, 

 but returned at nine from his presidential chair at the 

 Philosophical Society." 



Audubon passed the winter of 1836 and 1837 in 

 Charleston, with his friend Dr. Bachman, making occa- 

 sional excursions into the country, to the neighboring sea 

 islands, and also to Savannah and Florida. But the 

 Seminole war then raging, he was unable to penetrate 

 much into the interior. This winter he began the studies 

 in Natural History, which led to the publication of the 

 Quadmpeds of North America, in connection with Dr. 

 Bachman. Early in the spring, he appears to have left 

 Charleston, in the revenue cutter Campbell, Captain 

 Coste, for explorations in the Gulf of Mexico. The jour- 

 nals are lost which describe the interval between the 17th 

 of January and the ist of April, under which latter date 



