As spring approached and the long awaited _Campbell_ had not arrived, Audubon, with Harris and John, started overland for New Orleans. After several days of hard traveling by coaches they reached Montgomery, 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 Harmony, 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 Gulf by the Southwest 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 MacGillivray,[142] dated "Côte Blanche, 18 April, 1837," which we will now reproduce: _Audubon to William MacGillivray_ MY DEAR FRIEND,— Being just now snugly anchored in a bay, the description of which may prove agreeable to you, I sit down to give you an account of what I have been doing since I last wrote to you.