JOHN LEDYARD. 311 



on foot in the midst of winter. When he passed 

 through the village of Tornea, he found all the 

 streets deserted and the houses huried to their very 

 roofs in snow. The thermometer stood thirty-seven 

 degrees below the freezing-point. He thus speaks 

 of this extraordinary journey: 



"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 round the world as I have 

 hitherto been from England through Denmark, 

 through Sweden, Swedish Lapland, Swedish Fin- 

 land, 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, 





