332 LIFE OF AUDUBON. 



GHAPTEE LIV. 



ExcuTBSioN South — Rambles round Chableston — Staets in Cutter tob 

 Galveston Bay, Texas — Baeatabia Bay — Great Hunting Bx- 

 cuesion -with a squatter. 



" Charleston, S. G., November 17, 1836. We arrived here last 

 evening, after an irksome and fatiguing journey, and seemingly 

 very slowly performed, in my anxiety to reach a resting place, 

 where friendship and love would combine to render our time 

 happy, and the prosecution of our labour 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 borne from one 

 mother. John Backman 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. Backman, making occasional excursions into 

 the country, to the neighbouring sea islands, and also to Sa- 

 vannah 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 Quadrupeds of North America, in connection with Dr. 

 Backman. Early in the spring, he appears to have left Charles- 

 ton, in the revenue cutter Campbell, Captain Costs, for explora- 

 tions in the Gulf of Mexico. The journals are lost which 

 describe the interval between the 17th of January and the 

 Ist of April, under which latter date we read that Audubon, 



