the 19th of
March, men hardly knew whether to regard him as a madman or a wonder.
Using the names of Jefferson and Lafayette, he jogged up the Russian
authorities by another application for the passport. The passport was
long in coming. How was Ledyard to know that Ismyloff, the Russian fur
trader, whom he had met in Oonalaska, had written letters stirring up
the Russian government to jealous resentment against all comers to the
Pacific? Ledyard was mad with impatience. Days slipped into weeks,
weeks into months, and no passport came. He was out of clothes, out of
money, out of food. A draft on his English friends kept him from
destitution. Just a year before, Billings, the astronomer of Cook's
vessel, had gone across Siberia on the way to America for the Russian
government. If Ledyard could only catch up to Billings's expedition,
that might be a chance to cross the Pacific. As if to exasperate his
impatience still more, he met a Scotch physician, a Dr. William Brown,
now setting out for Siberia on imperial business, who offered to carry
him along free for three thousand of the seven thousand miles to the
Pacific. Perhaps the proceeds of that English draft helped him with
the slow Russian authorities, but at last, on June 1, he had his
passport, and was off with Dr. Brown. His entire earthly possessions
at this time consisted of a few guineas, a suit of {259} clothes, and
large debts. What was the crack-brained enthusiast aiming at anyway?
An empire half the present size of the United States.

From St. Petersburg to Moscow in six days, drawn by three horses at
breakneck pace, from Moscow to Kazan through the endless forests, on to
the Volga, Brown and Ledyard hastened. By the autumn they were across
the Barbary Desert, three thousand miles from St. Petersburg. Here
Brown remained, and Ledyard went on with the Cossack mail carriers.
All along the endless trail of two continents, the trail of East and
West, he passed the caravans of the Russian fur traders, and learned
the astonishing news that more than two thousand Russians were on the
west coast of America. Down the Lena next, to Yakutsk, the great
rendezvous of the fur traders, only one thousand miles more to the
Pacific; and on the great plain of the fur traders near Yakutsk he at
last overtook the Billings explorers on their way to America. Only one
guinea was left in his pocket, and the Cossack commandant reported that
the season was too far advanc