However, I did not shoot, but asked him why he was shooting my hogs? 'Hogs! good man, you are quite mistaken; we are shooting snipes until we come in contact with the rascally pirates who infest the coast, and lay waste your plantations. My name, my good sir, is Captain ——, of the United States Navy; and these are some of my men. Will you come on board, and breakfast with us on your own snipes?'" No wonder that the major, having been subject to the visits of these marauders, should have taken us in the dusk, armed as we were, and withal not having precisely the aspect of sober citizens, for persons not quite as good as we should be. But I must now conclude, and in my next you shall hear something of the result of my expedition into the marshes. [Illustration: BUST OF AUDUBON BY WILLIAM COUPER IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK. Published by courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History.] After wading through mud for whole days, exposed to scorching heat, and constantly annoyed by myriads of insects in the course of their numerous excursions on shore, they reached Galveston Bay on the 24th of April. The fort of Galveston returned their salute of "26 fires," given by the big gun on the _Campbell_, and shortly after they received a visit from the Secretary of the Navy of the Republic of Texas, which under Sam Houston had declared its independence but a few weeks before their arrival, and were invited to proceed to the seat of government, at Houston, eighty miles distant, in the interior. They landed on the 26th of April, and after three weeks had been spent in exploring Galveston Island and its adjacent shores for birds and animals of all sorts, they started for Houston on the 8th of May. After making about twelve miles, their vessel grounded on Red Fish Bar, and the party then took to tender and gig, reaching their destination on the 15th; wild turkeys, ibises, and ducks of many kinds were seen in great numbers along their course. Audubon has left a graphic account[143] of what he then saw at the capital of this short-lived infant Republic, including its picturesque President, the _mêlée_ of dejected Mexican prisoners then gathered there, and its drunken Indians, "halooing and stumbling about in the mud in every direction." Houston's abode was a small log house, "consisting of two rooms, with a passage through, after the Southern fashion."