JOHN LEDYABD'S TRAVELS. 99 



from ice till near June. The course of the river thus far 

 has been northeasterly. 



Nearly one hundred years ago, John Ledyard, the great 

 American traveler of that period, after walking from London 

 to St. Petersburg, through Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and 

 Finland, made his way to Irkutsk, where he became ac- 

 quainted with a Swedish officer. On the 26th of August, 

 1787, (he two travelers embarked on the Upper Lena in a 



SIBERIAN RIVER BOAT. 



small boat, at a point 150 miles distant from Irkutsk, with 

 the intention of floating down with its current 1,400 miles to 

 Yakutsk- just as Ledyard, in his college days, had floated 

 down the Connecticut River in a small canoe, from Hanover, 

 N. H., to Hartford. 



When they started, says Sparks, there had been a hard 

 frost, and the forest trees had begun to drop their foliage 

 and put on their garb of winter. Tbe stream was at first no 

 more than twenty yards broad, with here and there gentle 

 rapids, and high, rugged mountains on each side. They 

 were carried along from 80 to 100 miles a day, the river 

 gradually increasing in size, and the mountain scenery put- 



