when they have performed any glorious action. The skin of the tiger slain by the ambassador was sent him by the emperor, who observed, that by the laws of hunting he had a right to it. The sport of the next day differed very little from the preceding. They continued, however, advancing through the forest without discovering any end to it, and passed the night in a temple near another imperial summerhouse. The extent of this immense park, which was all enclosed by a high wall, may enable us to form some idea of the quantity of useless land in China; for besides the number of similar enclosures belonging to the imperial family, we may be sure that, as far as possible, all the rich and great imitate the example of the sovereign.

The ambassador now received his audience of leave, and, after making several visits of ceremony, and receiving the curious but not valuable presents intended for the czar, departed from Pekin. Their route from the capital to the Great Wall, and thence across the deserts of Mongolia to Selinguisky, though not precisely the same as that by which they had come, afforded but few new objects, and was rendered interesting by no striking incidents. The Baikal Lake being still frozen when they reached it, they traversed it on light sledges upon the ice. They then embarked upon the Angara, and descended by water to Yeniseisk. Proceeding thence by land, they soon arrived upon the banks of the river Ket, where they again took to their boats; and sailing down this melancholy stream, bordered on both sides by the most gloomy forests, immerged into the mighty stream of the Obe. They now sailed down this river to its confluence with the Irtish, another noble stream, against the current of which they made their way with much difficulty to Tobolsk. Here they quitted their boats, and continued their journey on sledges. Winter was rapidly invading the country. Snow, cold winds, frost, and short days conspired

them, by signs, that there were white strangers in the country, who had come, like them, over the great waters in a large ship.

This information excited in Cook a desire to explore the island. It was difficult, however, to determine in what manner the object was to be effected. An armed body would proceed slowly, and might, perhaps, be cut off,-an irreparable loss to the expedition. The risk of a single individual would be imminent, but his movements would be more rapid; and if he should fall, the loss to the public would not be great. Yet, as the commander did not think himself justified in ordering any person to undertake so perilous an enterprise, a volunteer was sought for; and Ledyard presented himself. The great navigator was highly pleased with this example of intrepidity, for the brave always sympathize with the. brave; and after giving the traveller instructions how to proceed, "he wished me well," says Ledyard, "and desired I would not be longer absent than a week, if possible; at the expiration of which he should expect me to return. If I did not return by that time, he should wait another week for me, and no longer."

The young chief who brought Cook the rye-cake and the salmon, with two persons who attended him, were to serve as guides on the occasion. Being furnished with a small quantity of bread and some brandy in bottles, intended for presents to the Indians, our traveller departed with his Indian guides, and during the first day advanced about fifteen miles into the interior. About nightfall they arrived at a small village consisting of about thirty huts, some of which were large and spacious, though not very lofty. These huts were composed of a slight frame erected over a square hole sunk about four feet into the ground. Below the frame was covered with turf, which served as a wall, and above it was thatched with grass. Though the whole village, men, women, VOL. II.-Q

and children, crowded to see him, it was not with the intense curiosity which their behaviour would have exhibited had they never before beheld a white man. Here they passed the night.

Their course had hitherto lain towards the north, but they next morning turned round towards the south-west. About three hours before night they reached the edge of a large bay, where the chief entered into a canoe, with all their baggage, and intimating to Ledyard that he was to follow his other companions, left him abruptly, and paddled across the bay. Although rendered somewhat uneasy at this movement, he proceeded along the shore with his guides, and in about two hours observed a canoe making towards them across the bay. Upon this they ran down to the water's edge, and, by shouting and waving bushes to and fro in the air, attracted the attention of the savages in the canoe. "It was beginning to be dark," says he, "when the canoe came to us. It was a skin canoe, after the Esquimaux plan, with two holes to accommodate two sitters. The Indians that came in the canoe talked a little with my two guides, and then came to me, and desired I would get into the canoe. This I did not very readily agree to, however, as there was no place for me but to be thrust into the space between the holes, extended at length upon my back, and wholly excluded from seeing the way I went, or the power of extricating myself upon an emergency. But as there was no alternative, I submitted thus to be stowed away in bulk, and went head foremost very swift through the water about an hour, when I felt the canoe strike a beach, and afterward lifted up and carried some distance, and then set down again; after which I was drawn out by the shoulders by three or four men; for it was now so dark that I could not tell who they were, though I was conscious I heard a language that was new. I was conducted by two of these persons, who appeared to be stran

gers, about forty rods, when I saw lights and a number of huts like those I left in the morning. As we approached one of them, a door opened and discovered a lamp, by which, to my great joy, I discovered that the two men who held me by each arm were Europeans, fair and comely, and concluded from their appearance they were Russians, which I soon after found to be true."

By these Russians, who had established themselves in Onalaska for the purpose of collecting furs for the markets of Moscow and Petersburg, Ledyard was received and entertained in a most hospitable manner; and when he returned to the ships was accompanied by three of the principal persons among them, and several inferior attendants. "The satisfaction this discovery gave Cook," says he," and the honour that redounded to me, may be easily imagined; and the several conjectures respecting the appearance of a foreign intercourse were rectified and confirmed."

From Onalaska the expedition sailed southward for the Sandwich Islands, and in two months arrived at Hawaii. On entering a commodious bay discovered on the southern coast of the island, they observed on each hand a town of considerable size, from which crowds of people, to whom the appearance offered by the ships was totally new, crowded down to the beach to receive the strangers. Their number was prodigious. No less than three thousand canoes, containing at least fifteen thousand men, women, and children, were crowded in the bay; and, besides these, numbers sustained themselves on floats, or swam about in the water. "The beach, the surrounding rocks, the tops of houses, the branches of trees, and the adjacent hills were all covered; and the shouts of joy and admiration proceeding from the sonorous voices of the men, confused with the shriller exclamations of the women, dancing and clapping their hands, the oversetting of

piety and benevolence, discharged with exemplary affection her duties towards him and her other children, notwithstanding a second marriage, this circumstance cut him off from all those advantages which the moral education received in a well-regulated family under the paternal roof confers. Owing in a great measure to the political condition of the country, but principally, perhaps, to the restlessness of his own character, his youthful studies were irregular and ill-directed. He frequently changed his inclinations in the choice of a profession. At one time the law, at another the career of a missionary among the Indians, captivated his fancy. When both these schemes of life had been, one after the other, abandoned, his imagination appears to have dwelt with complacency for a moment on the peaceful studies and noiseless, though important, avocations of a country clergyman.

The completion of the slender education which he received was effected at Dartmouth College, an institution established by the Rev. Dr. Wheelock, in the back woods, with the benevolent design of scattering the seeds of religion and civilization among the Indian nations. Here Ledyard, whose mind was as impatient of the salutary restraints of discipline as that of any savage upon earth, exhibited unequivocal tokens of those locomotive propensities which afterward goaded him into rather than directed him in his romantic but almost aimless wanderings over the greater part of the habitable world. For ordinary studies he had evidently no aptitude. He read, indeed, but it was such reading as beguiled away the time, and nourished the fantastic vagaries of his imagination, without much enlarging his mind, or knitting his character into firmness or consistency. In many respects he scarcely yielded to the knight of La Mancha. What does the reader think he carried with him to college, whither he was proceeding for the purpose of fitting himself for spreading the