The first adventurer was Mr. Ledyard, who, from his earliest age, had been a traveller from one extremity of the earth to the other. He had circumnavigated the globe with Capt. Cook, had resided for several years amongst the American indians, and had travelled with the most scanty means from Stockholm round the Gulf of Bothnia, and thence to the remotest parts of Asiatic Russia. On his return from his last journey, Sir Joseph Banks was then just looking out for a person to explore the interior of Africa, and Ledyard was no sooner introduced to him, than he pronounced him to be the very man fitted for the undertaking. Ledyard also declared that the scheme was in direct unison with his own wishes, and on being asked how soon he could depart, he answered, "Tomorrow." Some time, however, elapsed in making the necessary arrangements, and a passage was shortly afterwards obtained for him to Alexandria, with the view of first proceeding southward from Cairo to Sennaar, and thence traversing the entire breadth of the African continent. He arrived at Cairo on the 19th of August, 1788. His descriptions of Egypt are bold and original, but somewhat fanciful. He represented the Delta as an unbounded plain of excellent land miserably cultivated; the villages as most wretched assemblages of poor mud huts, full of dust, fleas, flies, and all the curses of Moses, and the people as below the rank of any savages he ever saw, wearing only a blue shirt and drawers, and tattooed as much as the South Sea islanders. He recommends his correspondents, if they wish to see Egyptian women, to look at any group of gypsies behind a hedge in Essex. He describes the Mohammedans as a trading, enterprising, superstitious, warlike set of vagabonds, who, wherever they are bent upon going, will and do go; but he complains that the condition of a Frank is rendered most humiliating and distressing by the furious bigotry of the Turks; to him it seemed inconceivable that such enmity should exist among men, and that beings of the same species should trick and act in a manner so opposite. By conversing with the Jelabs, or slave merchants, he learned a good deal respecting the caravan routes and countries of the interior. Every thing seemed ready for his departure, and he announced that his next communication would be from Sennaar, but, on the contrary, the first tidings received were those of his death. Some delays in the departure of the caravans, acting upon his impatient spirit, brought on a bilious complaint, to which he applied rash and violent remedies, and thus reduced himself to a state, from which the care of Rosetti, the Venetian consul, and the skill of the best physician of Cairo sought in vain to deliver him.