troubled at this moment to write you as I ought to do. I will only add, that I am going in a few days to make the tour of the globe from London east on foot. I dare not write you more, nor introduce you to the real state of my affairs. Farewell. Farewell. Fortitude! Adieu."

By this it will be seen that his Siberian project was again revived; and, in fact, a subscription to aid him in this object had already been commenced in London, under the patronage of Sir Joseph Banks, Dr. Hunter, Sir James Hall, and Colonel Smith. "I fear my

subscription will be small," he says, in a letter to Mr. Jefferson; "it adds to my anxiety to reach those dominions where I shall not want money. I do not mean the dominions that may be beyond death. I shall never wish to die while you and the Marquis are alive. I am going across Siberia, as I before intended." The amount collected by his friends is not mentioned, but it was such as to induce him to set out upon the journey; which, indeed, he probably would have done had he obtained no money at all. He had lived too long by expedients to be stopped in his career by an obstacle so trifling in his imagination as the want of money, and he was panting to get into a country where its use was unknown, and where, of course, the want of it would not be felt.

CHAPTER VIII.

Ledyard proceeds to Hamburg; thence to Copenhagen and Stockholm. - Journey round the Gulf of Bothnia. - Arrives at Petersburg. Procures a Passport from the Empress.- Sets out for Siberia. Crosses the Uralian Mountains. Descriptions of the Country and the Inhabitants. Arrives at Irkutsk.

LEAVING London in December, Ledyard went over to Hamburg, whence he immediately wrote to Colonel Smith. From the account of his finances contained in that letter, it would not seem that he was encumbered, at his departure from England, with a heavy purse. He makes no complaint, however; on the contrary, he expresses only joy, that the journey, which he had so long desired, was actually begun.

"I am here," he says, "with ten guineas exactly, and in pcrfect health. One of my dogs is no more. I lost him on my passage up the River Elbe to Hamburg, in a snow storm. I was out in it forty hours in an open boat. My other faithful companion is under the table on which I write. I dined to-day with Madam Parish, lady of the gentleman I

mentioned to you. It is a Scotch house of the first commercial distinction here. The Scotch have by nature a dignity of sentiment, that renders them accomplished. I could go to Heaven with Madam Parish, but she had some people at her table, that I could not go to heaven with. I cannot submit to a haughty eccentricity of manners. My fate has sent me to the tavern where Major Langborn was three weeks. He is now at Copenhagen, having left his baggage here to be sent on to him. By some mistake he has not received it, and has written to the master of the hotel on the subject. I shall write to him, and give him my address at Petersburg. I should wish to see him at all events; but to have him accompany me on my voyage would be a pleasure

indeed."

This Major Langborn turns out to be an American officer, lately arrived in Hamburg from Newcastle, "a very good kind of a man, and an odd kind of a man,' 99 as the master of the hotel called him, one who had travelled much, and was fond of travelling in his own way. He had gone off to Copenhagen without his baggage, taking with him only one spare shirt, and very few other articles of clothing. It does not appear, that Ledyard had ever been acquainted with Langborn, or even

seen him; but he had heard such a description of him from Colonel Smith and others, that in fancy he had become enamored of the originality and romantic turn of his character, and particularly of his passion for travelling. Carried away with this whimsical prepossession, he had got it into his head that Langborn was the fittest man in the world to be

the companion of his travels. An imaginary resemblance between their pursuits, condition, and the bent of their genius, created a sympathy, that was not to be resisted. He moreover suspected, from hints which he saw in Langborn's letter, inquiring about his trunk, that he was in want of money. Here was another appeal to his generosity, and one which he could never suffer to be made in vain, when he had ten guineas in his pocket. "I will fly to him with my little all, and some clothes, and lay them at his feet. At this moment I may be useful to him.

He is my

He may

countryman, a gentleman, a traveller. go with me on my journey. If he does, I am blessed; if not, I shall merit his attention, and shall not be much out of my way to Petersburg."

With this state of his feelings, it is not wonderful that we should next hear from him at Copenhagen. He hastened on to that city,

and arrived there about the 1st of January, 1787, although it was taking him far aside from his direct course, and exposing him to all the fatigues and perils of a long, tedious winter passage through Sweden and Finland. He found Langborn in a very awkward situation, without money or friends, and shut up in his room for the want of decent apparel to appear abroad in; and, what was worse, incurring the suspicions of those around him, that he was some vagabond, or desperate character, whose conduct had rendered it expedient for him to keep out of sight. Imagination only can paint the joy, that glowed in our traveller's countenance, when he saw the remains of his ten guineas slip from his fingers, to relieve the distresses of his new found friend. All that could now be said of them was, that their poverty was equalized; the Major could walk abroad, and his benefactor had not means to carry him beyond the bounds of the city. The road to Petersburg was many hundred miles long, through snows, and over ice, and presenting obstacles enough at that season to appal the stoutest heart, even with all the facilities for travelling which gold could purchase. What, then, was the prospect for a moneyless pedestrian ?

These reflections were not suffered to in