Word: ledyard
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...first two units of the book, “Early America Encounters the Middle East” and “The Middle East and Antebellum America,” are possibly the most astounding. American relations with the Middle East, we learn, have not really changed since John Ledyard, the first American to explore the region, traveled to Egypt...
...November 1786, with only 50 pounds, a wool cloak, two dogs, a hatchet, and a peace pipe, Ledyard walked through northern Sweden and Finland to reach St. Petersburg, Russia. As he walked, he got in the habit of talking to himself in French: “I believe that wolves, rocks, woods & snow understand it, for I have addressed them in it & they have all been very complaisant to me,” he wrote to Jefferson...
After a short stay in St. Petersburg, Ledyard set off across Siberia in a kibitka, a coach drawn by three horses. But he never received permission to travel through the country from Catherine the Great, and the empress signed an order for his arrest. She feared that Ledyard was really trying to spy on the Russian fur trade, and perhaps pass the information along to the British. Ledyard was rudely escorted out of Russia and his goal of circumambulating the world ended in disappointment...
...Africa, and he, of course, volunteered. Unfortunately, so soon after his Siberian excursion, Ledyard’s health was not as vigorous as his spirit. “To those who knew him…the African adventure looked something like a death wish,” Zug writes. Ledyard only made it as far as Cairo. Suffering stomach pains, he took medication to induce vomiting. But he ingested too strong a dose, causing a blood vessel to burst. He died...
...Ledyard was lionized in American newspapers after word of his death reached the States. His exploits attracted the attention of the famed historian and future Harvard president Jared Sparks, Class of 1815. Sparks published a comprehensive biography of Ledyard in 1828, the first edition of which now lies in Widener. Almost two centuries before Captains Kirk and Picard, Ledyard had set the standard for world travelers. He had dared to boldly go where no man had gone before...