as it would seem they were not, his erratic spirit did not sink into a lethargy for want of expedients to keep it alive. In midwinter, when the ground was covered with deep snow, Ledyard collected a party whom he persuaded to accompany him to the summit of a neighbouring mountain, and there pass the night. Dr. Wheelock consented to the project, as his heart was bent on training up the young men to be missionaries among the Indians, and he was willing they should become inured to hardships, to which a life among savages would frequently expose them. The projector of the expedition took the lead of his volunteers, and conducted them by a pathless route through the thickets of a swamp and forests, till they reached the top of the mountain, just in time to kindle a fire, and arrange their encampment on the snow before it was dark. The night, as may be supposed, was dreary and sleepless to most of the party, and few were they who did not greet the dawn with gladness. Their leader was alert, prompt at his duty, and pleased with his success. The next day they returned home, all perfectly satisfied, unless it were Ledyard, with this single experiment of their hardihood, without being disposed to make another similar trial. He had a pro

pensity for climbing mountains, as will be seen hereafter, when we meet him at the Sandwich Islands.

After abandoning his missionary schemes he began to grow weary of college, and the more so, probably, as his unsettled habits now and then drew from the president a salutary admonition on the importance of a right use of time, and a regard for the regulations of the establishment. Such hints he conceived to be an indignity, and fancied himself ill treated. That there was value in rules of order and discipline he did not pretend to deny, but seemed at a loss to imagine why they should apply to him. That the whole subject might be put at rest, without involving any puzzling questions of casuistry, he resolved to escape.

On the margin of the Connecticut river, which runs near the college, stood many majestic forest trees, nourished by a rich soil. One of these Ledyard contrived to cut down. He then set himself at work to fashion its trunk into a canoe, and in this labour he was assisted by some of his fellow-students. As the canoe was fifty feet long and three wide, and was to be dug out and constructed by these unskilful workmen, the task was not a trifling one, nor such as could be speedily executed. Opera

tions were carried on with spirit, however, till Ledyard wounded himself with an axe, and was disabled for several days. When recovered, he applied himself anew to his work; the canoe was finished, launched into the stream, and, by the further aid of his companions, equipped and prepared for a voyage. His wishes were now at their consummation, and, bidding adieu to these haunts of the muses, where he had gained a dubious fame, he set off alone, with a light heart, to explore a river, with the navigation of which he had not the slightest acquaintance. The distance to Hartford was not less than one hundred and forty miles, much of the way was through a wilderness, and in several places there were dangerous falls and rapids.

With a bearskin for a covering, and his canoe well stocked with provisions, he yielded himself to the current, and floated leisurely down the stream, seldom using his paddle, and stopping only in the night for sleep. He told Mr. Jefferson, in Paris, fourteen years afterwards, that he took only two books with him, a Greek Testament, and Ovid, one of which he was deeply engaged in reading when his canoe approached Belows's Falls, where he was suddenly roused by the noise of the waters rushing among

the rocks through the narrow passage. The danger was imminent, as no boat could go down that fall without being instantly dashed in pieces. With difficulty he gained the shore in time to escape such a catastrophe, and through the kind assistance of the people in the neighbourhood, who were astonished at the novelty of such a voyage down the Connecticut, his canoe was drawn by oxen around the fall, and committed again to the water below. From that time, till he arrived at his place of destination, we hear of no accident, although he was carried through several dangerous passes in the river. On a bright spring morning, just as the sun was rising, some of Mr. Seymour's family were standing near his house, on the high bank of the small river that runs through the city of Hartford and empties itself into the Connecticut river, when they espied at some distance an object of unusual appearance moving slowly up the stream. Others were attracted by the singularity of the sight, and all were conjecturing what it could be, till its questionable shape assumed the true and obvious form of a canoe; but by what impulse it was moved forward none could determine. Something was seen in the stern, but apparently without life or motion. At length the canoe touched the shore directly

in front of the house; a person sprang from the stern to a rock in the edge of the water, threw off a bearskin in which he had been enveloped, and behold John Ledyard, in the presence of his uncle and connexions, who were filled with wonder at this sudden apparition, for they had received no intelligence of his intention to leave Dartmouth, but supposed him still there diligently pursuing his studies, and fitting himself to be a missionary among the Indians..

However unimportant this whimsical adventure may have been in its results, or even its objects, it was one of no ordinary peril, and illustrated in a forcible manner the character of the navigator. The voyage was performed in the last part of April or first of May, and of course the river was raised by the recent melting of the snow on the mountains. This circumstance probably rendered the rapids less dangerous, but it may be questioned whether there are many persons at the present day, who would willingly run the same hazard, even if guided by a pilot skilled in the navigation of the river.

We cannot look back to Ledyard, thus launching himself alone in so frail a bark, upon the waters of a river wholly unknown to him, without being reminded of the only similar occur