virtues. He then visited his friends in Hartford, where he passed the winter; but his restless spirit could be tranquil no longer. He projected a voyage to the Northwest coast for furs, but, after trying in vain a whole year to get some merchants in New York and Boston to embark in it, he sailed for France. At L'Orient he made an engagement with some merchants of that place for such a voyage, but, after wasting many months in preparation, the whole scheme failed. Such continued disappointments would have broken down any one who had not the persevering, adventurous spirit of Ledyard. He bore them with fortitude, and we find him the next year projecting a journey across Russia and Siberia to Okhotsk, on the Okhotsk Sea. His plan was warmly approved of by Sir Joseph Banks and other gentlemen of science in London, for they thought that his discoveries would not fail to add valuable improvements to geography and natural history, and there was a romantic daring in the enterprise itself.

In December, 1786, Ledyard left London for Hamburg to set out on his hyperborean tour. He arrived in Copenhagen in January, and thence sailed to Stockholm. It was his intention to go directly across the Gulf of Finland to St. Petersburg; but such was the nature of the winter, and so full of floating ice were the waters, that this was impossible, and he was obliged to take the most formidable route by land up to Tornea, at the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, and thence to St. Petersburg. It is astonishing in how short a time, comparatively, he accomplished this journey, so full of danger and hardships, for he reached St. Petersburg by the 20th of March. In his letter to Mr. Jefferson, then our minister in Paris, he thus writes:

LEDYARD AT ST. PETERSBURG.

I cannot tell you by what means I came to Petersburg, and hardly know by what means I shall quit it, in the further prosecution of my tour round the world by land. If I have any merit in the affair, it is perseverance, for most severely have I been buffeted; and yet still am even more obstinate than before; and fate, as obstinate, continues her assaults. How the matter will terminate I know not. The most probable conjecture is, that I shall succeed, and be buffeted around the world, as I have hitherto been from England through Denmark, through Sweden, Swedish Lapland, Swedish Finland, and the most unfrequented parts of Russian Finland, to this aurora borealis of a city. I cannot give you a history of myself since I saw you, or since I wrote you last; however abridged, it

would be too long. Upon the whole, mankind have used me well, and though I have as yet reached only the first stage of my journey, I feel myself much indebted for that urbanity which I always thought more general than many think it to be; and were it not for the mischievous laws and bad examples of some governments I have passed through, I am persuaded I should be able to give you a still better account of our fellowcreatures. But I am hastening to countries where goodness, if natural to the human heart, will appear independent of example, and furnish an illustration of the character of man not unworthy of him who wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Suffering many vexatious delays at St. Petersburg before he could get his passport from the Empress to travel through her dominions, he at length left the imperial city on the 1st of June, in company with Mr. Wm. Brown, a Scotch physician, who was going to the province of Kolyvan, in the employment of the Empress. In six days, the party arrived at Moscow, where they stayed but one day. They hired a person to go with them to Kazan, a distance of 550 miles, and drive their KIBITKA with three horses. "Kibitka travelling," says Ledyard, in his journal, “is the remains of caravan travelling; it is your only home; it is like a ship at sea." They stayed a week at Kazan, a city on the right bank of the majestic Volga, and then commenced their journey to Tobolsk, where they arrived on the 11th of July. This city, once the capital of all Siberia, is one of considerable interest, being the residence of such exiles from Russia as have been sent to Siberia for political reasons. They are generally persons of great intelligence, for no government banishes fools, and Ledyard and Dr. Brown found here a very pleasing society. They stayed here, however, but three days, and then continued their journey to Barnaul, the capital of the province of Kolyvan.

At this place Ledyard was to leave Dr. Brown and proceed alone. He, therefore, was prevailed upon to remain here a week, and enjoy the hospitalities of the society. In his journal, he writes thus of

THE TARTARS AND RUSSIANS.

The nice gradation by which I pass from civilization to incivilization appears in everything-in manners, dress, language; and particularly in that remarkable and important circumstance, color, which, I am now fully convinced, originates from natural causes, and is the effect of external and local

circumstances. I think the same of feature. I see here among the Tartars the large mouth, the thick lip, the broad flat nose, as well as in Africa. I see also in the same village as great a difference of complexion, from the fair hair, fair skin, and white eyes, to the olive, the black jetty hair and eyes; and these all of the same language, same dress, and, I suppose, same tribe. I have frequently observed in Russian villages, obscure and dirty, mean and poor, that the women of the peasantry paint their faces, both red and white. I have had occasion from this and other circumstances to suppose that the Russians are a people who have been early attached to luxury. They are everywhere fond of éclat. "Sir," said a Russian officer to me in Petersburg, "we pay no attention to anything but éclat." The contour of their manners is Asiatic, and not European. The Tartars are universally neater than the Russians, particularly in their houses. The Tartar, however situated, is a voluptuary, and it is an original and striking trait in their character, from the Grand Seignior, to him who pitches his tent on the wild frontiers of Russia and China, that they are more addicted to real sensual pleasure than any other people. The Emperor of Germany, the Kings of England and France, have pursuits that give an entirely different turn to their enjoyments; and so have their respective subjects. Would a Tartar live on live le Roi? Would he spend ten years in constructing a watch? or twenty in forming a telescope?

After spending a week very agreeably at Barnaoul, Ledyard made preparations for recommencing his journey. From this place to Irkutsk it was arranged that he should travel post with the courier who had charge of the mail. He arrived at Tomsk, 300 miles, in three days, and thence journeyed to Irkutsk, at the head of Lake Baikal, which he reached in ten days from the time of leaving Tomsk. Here he stayed ten days, and then set out for Yakutsk, on the Lena, which he reached on the 18th of September, after a fatiguing sail on the river of twenty-two days.

At Yakutsk, Ledyard was told by the authorities that the journey to Okhotsk at that season was impracticable. This he did not regard ; but when he saw that this was a mild manner of telling him that he must not go, he was exceedingly vexed, and in his journal gives vent to his feelings of bitter disappointment. Finding, however, that he must pass the winter there, he resolved to make the best use of his time, and lost no opportunity of gaining all the knowledge he could of the country and the people. A few extracts from his journal here will be interesting :-

PHYSIOGNOMY OF THE TARTARS.

The Tartar face, in the first impression it gives, approaches nearer to the African than the European; and this impression is strengthened on a more deliberate examination of the individual features and whole compages of the countenance; yet it is very different from an African face. The nose forms a strong feature in the human face. I have seen instances among the Kalmuks where the nose between the eyes has been much flatter and broader than I have ever witnessed in Negroes, and some few instances where it has been as broad over the nostrils quite to the end; but the nostrils in any case are much smaller than in Negroes. Where I have seen those noses, they were accompanied with a large mouth and thick lips; and these people were genuine Kalmuk Tartars. The nose protuberates but little from the face, and is shorter than that of the European. The eyes universally are at a great distance from each other, and very small; at each corner of the eye the skin projects over the ball; the part appears swelled; the eyelids go in nearly a straight line from corner to corner. When open, the eye appears as in a square frame. The mouth generally, however, is of a middling size, and the lips thin. The next remarkable features are the cheek bones. These, like the eyes, are very remote from each other, high, broad, and withal project a little forward. The face is flat. When I look at a Tartar en profile, I can hardly see the nose between the eyes, and if he blow a coal of fire, I cannot see the nose at all. The face is. then like an inflated bladder. The forehead is narrow and low. The face has a fresh color, and on the cheek bones there is commonly a good ruddy hue.

The faces of Tartars have not a variety of expression. I think the predominating one is pride; but whenever I have viewed them they have seen a stranger. The intermixture by marriage does not operate so powerfully in producing a change of features as of complexion, in favor of Europeans. I have seen the third in descent, and the Tartar prevailed over the European features. The Tartars, from time immemorial (I mean the Asiatic Tartars), have been a people of a wandering disposition. Their converse has been more among the beasts of the forest than among men; and when among men, it has only been those of their own nation. They have ever been savages, averse to civilization, and have never, until very lately,

mingled with other nations, and now rarely. Whatever cause may have originated their peculiarities of features, the reason why they still continue, is their secluded way of life, which has preserved them from mixing with other people. I am ignorant how far a constant society with beasts may operate in changing the features, but I am persuaded that this circumstance, together with an uncultivated state of mind, if we consider a long and uninterrupted succession of ages, must account, in some degree, for this remarkable singularity.

WOMAN.

I have observed among all nations that the women ornament themselves more than the men; that, wherever found, they are the same kind, civil, obliging, humane, tender beings; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest. They do not hesitate, like man, to perform a hospitable or generous action; not haughty, nor arrogant, nor supercilious, but full of courtesy and fond of society; -industrious, economical, ingenuous; more liable in general to err than man, but in general also more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship to a woman, whether civilized or savage, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner that, if I was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and, if hungry, ate the coarse morsel, with a double relish.

On the 29th of December, Ledyard left Yakutsk to return to Irkutsk, which he reached in seventeen days. Here, by an order from the Empress, he was arrested, under the pretence of his being a spy; but the fact is the Russian government did not wish their trade and resources and policy to be too closely examined by such a man as Ledyard. He was conducted by two guards with all the speed with which horses and sledges could convey them towards Moscow, exposed to the extreme rigors of a Siberian winter; and, though no evidence