Having called on Mr BREEDLOVE, Collector of Customs for New Orleans, and presented to him my letters from the Honourable LEVI WOODBURY, he at once assured me that the Revenue Cutter the Campbell, would be at my disposal in a very few days. But the service, or other circumstances, did not allow the arrival of that vessel at New Orleans until late in March, and at a time when, apprehensive that our intended voyage might be frustrated, we were all “crest-fallen.” Time, however, passed on, and one morning I was gladdened by being called upon by the Commander of the Campbell, and still more upon recognising in him the Lieutenant and Pilot of the Marion, or Lady of the Green Mantle, so frequently mentioned in the former volumes of these Ornithological Biographs. I knew that NAPOLEON COSTE was a true sea-fowl. He assured me of the excellence of his vessel, and gay and happy were we all when we removed on board the tight little sea-boat, of scarcely more than sixty tons burden. Proceeding down the Mississippi, we sailed through its south-west Pass, where we were joined by a vessel of eight tons, as a tender for our excursions along the shores. It was commanded by Captain WILLIAM TAYLOR, now, I believe, a Commodore in the Texian service, a gentleman who has seen much of the world, an excellent companion, and a good hunter and fisher. Of our various excursions, whether by water or by land, between the mouths of the Mississippi and the point at which we returned, a detailed account would prove tedious and fatiguing; for what interest can there be in the relation of our wading through mud for whole days, exposed to the scorching heat, and continually annoyed by myriads of insects? We reached the Bay of Galveston on the 24th of April 1837, and ransacked not only the island of that name, but all those in that celebrated inlet of the Mexican Gulf, which we thought worthy of our attention. It was a curious circumstance to me, that, being on board of the first American armed vessel in the United States’ Service that had entered the Bay, the fort of Galveston returned the salute of twenty-six fires from the great gun of the Campbell; and almost equally so when I received a visit from the Secretary of the Navy of the infant Republic of Texas, with a written invitation to proceed to the seat of Government, the newly founded city of Houston, distant from our anchorage about eighty miles. Toward this place the Campbell proceeded about twenty miles, when, meeting with a bar, on which there is not more than about four feet of water at full tide, she again came to anchor. At this place, which is called Red-Fish Bar, on the 9th of May, my friend EDWARD HARRIS, Captain COSTE, and five sailors took the gig, while the Crusader, our tender, took the Secretary of the Texian Navy, M. FISHER, Esq., a Mr WARD, my son, and myself. We crossed a large but shallow bay with a fair wind, and proceeding rapidly, passed