INTRODUCTION. xiii 
Charleston, for the purpose of accompanying us along the 
western coast of the Floridas, and the Gulf of Mexico, at 
least as far as Galveston Island in Texas. On reaching the 
city of Washington, I presented myself to the Honourable 
Levi Wooppury, Secretary of the Treasury of the United 
States, a gentleman of learning, long friendly towards me, 
who at once assured me that he would, if possible, grant me 
one of our Revenue Cutters, for my intended voyage. The 
war, which was at that time raging between the Seminole 
Indians and the citizens of Florida tended strongly to frus- 
trate my wishes, as every disposable vessel of the class under 
the Secretary of the Treasury was engaged on the coast of the 
Peninsula. I called on President ANDREW Jackson, from 
whom, since 1819, I have received peculiar facilities, and 
who assured me of his wish to grant my request. My son and 
I dined with him on that day sans fagon, both of us in the un- 
dress best suited to practical students of nature. And here 
I may inform you, that I have seldom eaten of a better Wild 
Turkey than the one which graced his table, and which had 
been procured not many miles distant from our centre of poli- 
tical intercourse. I also had the pleasure of seeing my ex- 
cellent friend, Colonel J. J. Abert, of the U. S. Topographi- 
cal Department, the Honourable J. R. Pornsert, and the Se- 
cretary of the Navy, to whom I then recommended several 
American naturalists as worthy of being engaged on any na- 
val expedition of discovery. 
We now proceeded towards Charleston in South Carolina, 
travelling the latter part of the way on one of the most extra- 
ordinary rail-roads in the world, and reached in safety the 
house of my worthy friend the Reverend Joun Bacumay, D. D. 
