LED 
4 r,6 
feet long, dividing into Ample branches, and covered 
with a brown bark, which is tomentofe or villofe whilft 
they are young, but afterwards becomes fmooth. Leaves 
linear-lanceolate, dufky green above, and fmooth, under¬ 
neath covered with a brown pile, quite entire, refetnbling 
thofe of rofemary, but wider, petioled, perennial. Flow¬ 
ers on peduncles an inch or more in length, nodding be¬ 
fore and after flowering, whitifh, in axillary bundles or 
corymbs. Capfule fmall, obovate, terminated by a long 
permanent Ityle ; valves coriaceous; partitions membra¬ 
naceous, fpringing from the edges of the valves, doubled, 
opening at the inner angle by a longitudinal chink. Re¬ 
ceptacles five, filiform, curved a little, fpringing from the 
upper part of the axis of the fruit, and hanging down 
freely in the cavity of the cells. Seeds extremely numer¬ 
ous anil fmall, irregularly fihaped like faw-dult, pointed 
at each end, of a brownilh llraw-colour. Native of the 
North of Europe. 
/?. L. decumbens, the creeping or dwarf ledum of 
Hudfcn’s Bay. It flowers here in April and May. In¬ 
troduced in 176a by Mr. John Bufh. Miller Teems to 
confound it with Andromeda polyfolia. 
a. Led urn latifolium, broad-leaved ledum, or Labrador 
tea: leaves oblong, rolled back at the edge, tomentofe 
underneath ; flowers fubpentandrous. This (limb grows 
three or four feet in height, with a trunk as thick as a 
man’s finger ; branches the firft year woolly and whitifli, 
the I'econd tomentofe and ruft-coloured, afterwards fmooth 
and brown. Leaves fcattered alternately, on fliort pe¬ 
tioles, quite entire, perennial, blunt, an inch or an inch 
and a half in length ; when young, pale green, hairy above 
and woolly white beneath ; when older, fmooth, dark green, 
and fometi.nes ruit-ccloured beneath. Flowers like thofe 
of the preceding, except in having only five ftamens. In 
moil of them, indeed, one fifth part is wanting in all the 
parts. Native of Greenland, Hudfon’s Bay, Labrador, 
Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. It flowers here in 
April and May ; and was introduced in 1763 by Mr. 
Bennet. Bees are very fond of the flowers of thefe plants. 
Quadrupeds do not browze on them, and they are reputed 
in fome degree poifonous ; they are, however, put into 
beer, in order to inebriate; and the fmoke of them deftroys 
bugs and other infeCts. The Rullians are faid to life 
them in tanning leather. A decoftion is given in the 
itch, See. 
3. Ledum buxifolium, or box-leaved ledum : leaves 
ovate-oblong, flat, fmooth. This is a finall flirub, fcarcely 
a foot in height; Item upright, roundifh, rugged with 
fears, alh-coloured; branches at Rated intervals, in a fort 
of whorl, leafy or fcarred, each fubvided and upright. 
Leaves like thofe of box, fcattered, frequent on fliort pe¬ 
tioles, blunt, two or three lines in length, fomewhat 
wrinkled above, fmooth beneath, dotted, fhining, on both 
fides, the edges rolled back. Native of New jerfey and 
Carolina in North America; introduced in 1736 by Peter 
Collinfon; flowers in April and May. 
Propagation and Culture. Thefe fhrubs, growing on 
inofies or bogs, where the roots fpread freely, cannot be 
preferved in gardens, at leaft fo as to thrive, but in a pro¬ 
per foil and a fliady fituation. The plants muft be pro¬ 
cured from the places of their growth, and taken up with 
good roots; they mull be planted in a border of bog 
earth, and frequently watered. See Cistus, Kalmia, 
and Rhododendron. 
LE'DUS, now Lez, a river of Gaul, near the modern 
Montpelier. 
LED'WELL, a village near Deddington in Oxfordfhire, 
noted for a fine fand tiled in making glafs. 
LED'WTCH, a river of England, which runs into the 
Temd five miles fouth-eaft of Ludlow in Shropfhire. 
LED'YARD, a native of America, who feems from 
his youth to have indulged an invincible defire of ac¬ 
quainting himfelf with the unknown or imperfcCtly-dif- 
covered regions of the globe. His hiftory is fo extraor¬ 
dinary, that a detail of fome of its leading particulars 
LED 
cannot be unamufing to our readers. Having lived for 
feveral years with the Indians of America, he had ftudied 
their manners, and had praftifed in their fchool the means 
of obtaining the protection, and of recommending him¬ 
felf to the favour, of favages. In the humble fituation of 
a corporal of .marines, to which lie fubmitted rather than 
relinquifn his purfuit, he had made with captain Cook 
the voyage of the world ; and, feeling on his return an 
anxious defire of penetrating from the north-weftern coaft 
of America, which Cook had partly explored, to the eaft- 
ern coaft, with which he himfelf was perfectly familiar, 
he determined to traverle the vaft continent from the Pa¬ 
cific to the Atlantic Ocean. His firft plan for the pur- 
pofe was that of embarking in a veffel, which was then 
preparing to fail, on a voyage of commercial adventure, 
to Nootka Sound, on the weftern coalt of America ; and 
with this view he expended in fea-Itores the greateft part 
of the money with which he had been fupplied by the li¬ 
berality of fir Jofeph Banks, who has eminently diftin- 
guilhed himfelf for the promotion of every kind of ufe- 
ful fcience. But this fclieme was fruftrated by the rapa¬ 
city of a cuftom houfe officer; and therefore Mr. Led- 
yard determined to travel over land to Kamtfchatka, 
whence the paflage is extremely ffiort to the oppofite coaft 
of America. Accordingly, with no more than ten gui¬ 
neas, which was all that lie had left, he eroded the Bri- 
tifli channel to Oftend, towards the clofe of the year 1786, 
and, by the way of Denmark and the Sound, proceeded 
to the capital of Sweden. As it was winter, he attempted 
to traverle the gulf of Bothnia on the ice, in order to 
reach Kamtfchatka by the fhorteft courfe; but, finding, 
when he came to the middle of the fea, that the water was 
not frozen, he returned to Stockholm, and, taking his 
courfe northward, walked to the arCtic circle, and, pair¬ 
ing round the head of the gulf, delcended on its eaitern 
fide to Peterfourg, where he arrived in the beginning of 
March, 1737. Here he was noticed as a perfon of an ex¬ 
traordinary character; and, though he had neither/lock¬ 
ings nor flioes, nor means to provide himfelf with any, he 
received and accepted an invitation to dine with the Por- 
tuguefe ambafiador. From him he obtained twenty gui¬ 
neas for a bill, which he took the liberty, without being 
previoully authorized, to draw on fir Jofeph Banks, con¬ 
cluding, from his well-known difpofition, that he would 
not be unwilling to pay it. By the interell of the ambaf- 
fador, he obtained permiffion to accompany a detachment 
of Itores, which the emprefs had ordered to be fent to Ya- 
kutz, for the life of Mr. Billings, an Englilhman, at that 
time in her fervice. Thus accommodated, he left Peterf- 
burg on the 21ft of May, and, travelling ealtward through 
Siberia, reached Irkutfk in Augult; and thence he pro¬ 
ceeded to Yakutz, where he was kindly received by Mr. 
Billings, whom he recolleCled on-board captain Cook’s 
fhip, in the fituation of the aftronomer’s fervant, but who 
was now entrulted by the emprefs in accomplilhing her 
fcliemes of difeovery. He returned to Irkutfk, where he 
fpent part of the winter; and in the fpring proceeded to 
Oczakow, on the coaft of the Kamtfchatkan Sea, intend¬ 
ing, in the fpring, to have palled over to that peninfula, 
and to have embarked on the eaftern fide in one of the 
Ruffian veffels that trade to the weftern fhores of Ame¬ 
rica ; but, finding that the navigation was completely 
obftruCled, he returned to Yakutz, in order to wait for 
the termination of the winter. But, whilft he was amuf- 
ing himfelf with thefe profpeCts, an exprefs arrived, in 
January 1788, from the emprefs, and he was feized, for 
reafons that have not been explained, by two Ruffian fol- 
diers, who conveyed him in a fledge through the deferts 
of Northern Tartary to Mofcow, without his clothes, mo¬ 
ney, and papers. From Mofcow he was removed to the city 
of Moialoff, in White Ruffia, and from thence to the town 
of Tolochin, on the frontiers of the Polilh dominions. As 
his conductors parted with him, they informed him, that, 
if he returned to Ruffia, he would be hanged; but that, if 
he chofe to go back to England, they wifhed him a pleafant 
journey. 
