THIRD AMERICAN TOUR 157 



As spring approached and the long awaited Camp- 

 bell had not arrived, Audubon, with Harris and John, 

 started overland for New Orleans. After several days 

 of hard traveling by coaches they reached Montgom- 

 ery, and descended the Alabama River by steamboat to 

 Mobile. When that district had been ransacked for 

 birds, they went on to Pensacola, where they learned 

 that the Government cutter would soon be at their 

 service at New Orleans ; accordingly they retraced their 

 steps to Mobile, passed through the lakes, and entered 

 the southern capital, the city in which the naturalist 

 had nearly starved, a penniless stranger, sixteen years 

 before, but which, less than three-quarters of a century 

 later, was to raise a monument to his memory. He 

 was still destined to a degree of disappointment, when 

 it was learned that the Campbell could not be put in 

 readiness before the last of March, but he was delighted 

 to find that the old pilot of the Marion^ Napoleon Coste, 

 was to command this vessel. At New Orleans Audubon 

 met for the last time "good M. Le Sueur," artist and 

 naturalist, who had spent many years at New Har- 

 mony, Indiana, and whose acquaintance he had first 

 made at Philadelphia in 1824. 



Audubon and his party finally left New Orleans 

 on the 1st of April and entered the GtJf by the South- 

 west Pass, where, on the 3rd of the month, they were 

 joined by the Crusader, a schooner of twelve tons which 

 was attached to the Revenue Service; on this journey 

 she carried a crew of four, with as many guns, and 

 acted as a tender to the larger vessel. The expedition 

 was provisioned for two months, and aimed to explore 

 the keys, bayous and shoreline from the Mississippi to 

 the Bay of Galveston. Some of Audubon's experiences 

 on this cruise were described in a letter to William Mac- 



