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ENTERPRISE AND ADVENTURE.
37

modation, by filling a tick with hay and sewing it up again. The whole property of this family," he adds, "could not have been worth ten pounds. I had arrived in a most miserable plight, the heavy and frequent rains having dilapidated my apparel, which, even in good weather, was not calculated to last long. My cap I had lost in the icy swamp, and in default my head was bound up with a piece of red flannel. My trousers were literally torn to tatters; my shoes tied to my feet to prevent their falling off; my shirt, except a flannel one and waistcoat, both superseded by my outer jacket. All I had retained was sound health and a contented mind, and I wanted no more, for this generous family had, during the night, put my entire wardrobe to rights; and I departed the following morning with sound clothing, and reflections of heartfelt gratitude to have met with the beneficial exercise of such qualities in a quarter of the world where I had so little reason to expect them."

After passing in this manner through Memel and Riga, at which towns he called upon the British Consuls, he reached St. Petersburg, having been eighty-three days from London in performing a distance of sixteen hundred miles. Here, he was kindly entertained by Sir Robert Kerr Porter, and, through Sir Daniel Bailey, the British Consul General, then the only representative of the British Court at St. Petersburg, he was enabled to transmit a memorial to Count Nesselrode, the Foreign Minister, for the approbation of His Imperial Majesty, who readily assented to furnish him with the necessary passports, and even offered the traveller, through Colonel Cathcart, money to aid him in the journey,