Explorers and Travellers Part 6

On January 18, 1803, Jefferson, then President, recommended in a confidential message to Congress modifications of the act regarding trade with Indians, and with the view of extending its provisions to the Indians on the Missouri, recommended the exploration of the Missouri River to its source, the crossing of the Rocky Mountains, and descent to the Pacific Ocean by the best water communication. Congress approved the plan and voted money for its accomplishment. Captain Meriwether Lewis, of the United States Army, who had been for nearly two years private secretary to the President, renewed his solicitations for command, which was given him.

Jefferson showed his versatility in the instructions to Captain Lewis, which are a model of fulness and clearness. The route to be followed, natural products and possibilities--animal, vegetable, and mineral--climatic conditions, commercial routes, the soil and face of the country, were all dwelt on. The character, customs, disposition, territory occupied, tribal relations, means of subsistence, language, clothing, disease, moral attributes, laws, traditions, religion, intellectuality, extent and means of trade, war methods, with respect to the Indian tribes visited, were to be studied and reported. The topography of the country was to be accurately determined, astronomically and otherwise, and the maps and notes multiplied to avoid total loss. The good-will of the chiefs was to be sought, peaceful methods pursued, and the inflexible opposition of any extensive force promising bloodshed was to be met by withdrawal and retreat. The country then being outside the limits of the United States, pa.s.sports from the ministers of Great Britain, Spain, and France were furnished.

Meriwether Lewis was born August 17, 1774, near Charlottesville, Va., being the son of John Lewis and Miss Meriwether, and grand-nephew of Fielding Lewis, who married a sister of George Washington. Volunteering, at the age of twenty, in the militia called out by Washington to put down the Shay rising, he was made ensign of the Second Sub-Legion May 1, 1795, and appointed in First Infantry November, 1796, where he rose to be paymaster and captain in 1800. He was a considerate and efficient officer, an expert hunter, versed in natural history, familiar with Indian character and customs. Appreciating his deficiencies in certain branches of science important in this expeditionary duty, he at once sought instruction from competent professors.

Jefferson describes Lewis as follows: "Of courage undaunted, possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction, ... honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as seen ourselves." The management and success of the expedition, it may here be said, fully justified the selection by and encomiums of Jefferson.

Lewis, given his choice of a.s.sociate, selected William Clark, who was appointed by Jefferson second lieutenant of artillery. Clark was a brother of George Rogers Clark, by whose valor and sagacity the Illinois or Northwest Territory was secured to the United States, and this connection made his selection for further extension of the country seem most fitting. Moreover young Clark had qualifications and experiences which strongly commended him to Lewis. Born in Virginia, August 1, 1770, William Clark had a thorough knowledge of the privations and conditions of frontier life. Skilful as a hunter, a keen observer, familiar with military life from four years of service as a lieutenant of infantry, and developed from his ill health, which caused him to leave the army in 1796, into a magnificent specimen of manhood, he proved so efficient a coadjutor that his name will ever be inseparably a.s.sociated with that of Lewis.

Lewis left Washington July 5, 1803, his mission being enhanced in its importance by the formal cession of Louisiana to the United States by the treaty of Paris, April 30, 1803, which news reached him July 1st.

The rendezvous was at St. Louis, which was reached via Pittsburgh and the Ohio, recruits being selected at various posts, while Lieutenant Clark joined at Louisville, though he was not commissioned in the army till the following March.

When the party reached St. Louis, in December, 1803, formal notice of the transfer of Louisiana had not reached the Spanish commandant, who would not permit their pa.s.sage westward. They pa.s.sed the winter in camp opposite the mouth of the Missouri, where they built a barge with sail-power and two smaller boats, with which they started up the Missouri River on May 14, 1804.

The expedition, commanded by Captain Lewis, with Lieutenant Clark as second, comprised thirty-four selected men, eleven being watermen, a negro servant, and a hunter, who was also an interpreter.

The valley of the lower Missouri was well known to the French Canadians, who, pushed westward by the irruption of English settlers in the Illinois region, sought isolation and freedom from foreign restraint in the country west of the Mississippi. St. Louis was their headquarters, but the Missouri was their field of fortune. The village of St. Charles, with its single street, had about five hundred souls, who lived by hunting and trade with the Indians, agriculture being quite neglected; and an outpost of seven poverty-stricken families existed at La Charrette, the advance guard of civilization. But the typical French trader and trapper disdained the shelter of a roof and the restraint of communities. His adventurous spirit pushed his frail bark into the quiet waters of the upper Kansas, through the shallows of the Platte, under the overshading trees of the beautiful James, along the precipitous red-clay cliffs of the Big Sioux, and, in search of the beaver, even penetrated the winding narrows of the Cheyenne and Little Missouri. They did not even stop at transient visits, but, fascinated by the roving, aimless life of the savage, took up abode with him, shared his tepee and wanderings, adopted his customs, took his squaw to wife, until longings strange and uncontrollable drew them back in old age to the home and religion of their youth. One of these venturesome wanderers named Durion, who had lived twenty years among the Sioux, was picked up on the river and accompanied Lewis to the mouth of the James, as a much-needed interpreter.

The mouth of the Platte was pa.s.sed on July 21st, and on the next day Lewis camped on the site of the present city of Council Bluffs, thus named by Lewis on account of his council with the Ottoes and Missouri Indians at this point. Here the first of a continuing series of presents was given to the grand chief: an American flag, a large medal, which was placed around his neck as a mark of consideration, paint, garters, cloth ornaments, a canister of powder, and the indispensable bottle of whiskey. The subordinate chiefs received inferior medals and presents according to their importance. These presents were made with much form and ceremony, wherein an important part were speeches setting forth the transfer of the territory to the United States, the benefits of peace, and the advantages of trade at the new post to be occupied by Americans.

Both Lewis and Clark had been accustomed to Indian life on the Eastern frontiers, but they found much that was strange and striking among the denizens of the great interior plains. Beyond the breech-cloth a loose buffalo robe usually kept the savage from nudity. The necklace of grizzly bear-claws, the ornaments of porcupine and feathers, the scalp-poles, the conical teepes covered with gayly-figured skins, the blue smoke up-curling from the open tent-top, the hoop-tambourine or half-drum, the queer whip-rattle of the hoofs of goats and deer, the bladder-rattle full of pebbles, the shaven heads of the men, the white-dressed buffalo robe with its jingling rows of porcupine quills and uncouth painted figures, emblematic of the brave's war-history, the hawk-feather or eagle-plume head-dress worked with porcupine quills, the polecat skin trailing from the young brave's moccasins, the deer-paunch tobacco-pouch, and a score of other novelties met their observing eyes. Among the Rickarees the octagonal earth-covered lodges, the picketed villages, the cultivated patches of corn, beans, and potatoes, the basket-like boats of interwoven boughs covered with a single buffalo skin, in which squaws paddled unconcernedly over high waves, were unknown phases of savage life.

Even the earth gave up its treasure, and they found the first of the famous petrifactions of the trans-Missouri region in the back-bone of a fish forty-five feet long, in a perfect state.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Blackfoot Tepee.]

Game gradually grew plentiful as they ascended the river. Buffalo was not seen till the Big Sioux was reached, but later fifteen herds and three bands of elk were visible at one time, and near Mandan large flocks of goats were seen crossing from their summer grazing grounds to find west of the Missouri winter shelter in the hilly regions. As they pa.s.sed the Indians drove large flocks of migrating goats into the river, where even boys killed the helpless animals by scores with sticks.

Indeed, the Missouri then appears to have been a hunter's paradise, for there are mentioned among the regular game antelope, bear, beaver, buffalo, badger, deer, elk, goats, and porcupine. Three thousand antelope were seen at one time, and of this animal Lewis accurately remarks: "The antelope possesses most wonderful swiftness, the acuteness of their sight distinguishes the most distant danger, the delicate sensibility of their smell defeats the precautions of concealment, and when alarmed their rapid career seems more like the flight of birds than the movements of an earthly being."

The river furnished abundant supply of cat and buffalo fish, and feathered game, such as plover, grouse, geese, turkeys, ducks, and pelican, also abounded; among the vegetable products are enumerated several kinds of grapes, currants and plums, wild apples, billberries, cherries, gooseberries, mulberries, raspberries, acorns, and hazel-nuts.

As regards the voyage thus far, it was true that the sail could rarely be used, that the labor of propelling the boats by oar or pole was most laborious, and that the shallows gave great trouble; but the Indians, save a single threatening occasion, were most friendly, and the only death, that of Sergeant Floyd, was from acute disease. Indeed, the journey had been most attractive and free from special hazard, and when rapidly advancing winter obliged them to go into permanent quarters, on October 27th, it seemed rather a long hunting excursion than a dangerous voyage of discovery.

Their winter quarters, called Fort Mandan, were on the eastern side of the Missouri, sixteen hundred miles from St. Louis, and in lat.i.tude 47 22' N., a short distance above the present city of Bismarck. The buildings were wooden huts, which joined and formed two sides of a triangle, while the third side was of pickets. As the huts opened inward, they had a stockaded place easy of defence.

On his arrival at Fort Mandan, Lewis found a Mr. McCracken, of the Hudson Bay Company, engaged in trading for horses and buffalo robes.

During the winter ten or twelve different traders of this company visited Mandan, and although one bore a letter from the chief factor, Mr. Charles Chabouilles, offering any service in his power, yet it was evident to Lewis that these traders were cultivating sentiments unfriendly to Americans among the Indians, and Chaboneau, the interpreter was tampered with; but the prompt and judicious action of Lewis resulted in apologies and promises to refrain from such conduct in future. Laroche, one of the Hudson Bay traders, desired to go west with the expedition, but it was thought best to decline the offer. At this time the nearest English trading-post was at the forks of the a.s.siniboin, about one hundred and fifty miles distant by the way of Mouse River.

The stay at Fort Mandan was marked by two sad experiences for the Indians encamped near the post: an autumnal prairie fire which burned two Indians to death, and an attack of the Sioux, wherein one Mandan was killed and two wounded. A Frenchman, Jesseaume, living with the Indians, served as interpreter, and they learned much of the Mandans, Rickarees, and Minnetarees. The Rickarees appeared in a very sensible light by refusing spirits, with the remark that they did not use it, and were surprised that their father should present to them a liquor which would make them fools. The sensibilities of these Indians in their peculiar way appeared in a chief who cried bitterly at seeing a court-martial sentence of flogging carried out on a soldier. The chief acknowledged the necessity of exemplary punishment, and said that for the same offence he had killed his braves, but that he never whipped any one, not even children.

The Mandans, through intervention, made peace with the Rickarees, and restored traps and furs which they had taken from French hunters. During the entire winter these Indian tribes were most friendly, and their stores of corn, obtained by the expeditionary force by trade or purchase, were of material benefit to the party. The negro was a constant source of wonder to the crowds of Indians who visited them. The one-eyed great chief of the Minnetarees said that some foolish young men had told him there was a person quite black. When York, the negro, appeared, the one-eyed savage, much surprised, examined the negro closely, and spitting on a finger rubbed the skin in order to wash off the paint, and it was not until the negro showed his curly hair that the Indian could be persuaded he was not a painted white man.

Game, though at some distance, was abundant, and seventy head of large animals were obtained in a hunt of ten days. With regard to the Indians Lewis says: "A camp of Mandans caught within two days one hundred goats a short distance below us. Their mode of hunting them is to form a large strong pen or fold, from which a fence is made of bushes gradually widening on each side; the animals are surrounded by the hunters and gently driven toward this pen, in which they imperceptibly find themselves enclosed, and are then at the mercy of the hunters.

"When the Indians engage in killing buffalo, the hunters mount on horseback and, armed with bows and arrows, encircle the herd and gradually drive it into a plain or open place fit for the movement of horse; they then ride in among them, and singling out a buffalo, a female being preferred, go as close as possible and wound her with arrows till they think they have given the mortal stroke; when they pursue another till the quiver is exhausted. If, which rarely happens, the wounded buffalo attacks the hunter, he evades the blow by the agility of his horse, which is trained for the combat with great dexterity."

The winter proved to be of unusual severity, and several times the temperature fell to forty degrees below zero, and proof spirits froze into hard ice. The fort.i.tude with which the hardy savages withstood such extreme cold, half naked as they often were, impressed our explorers.

Spring opened early, and on April 7, 1805, Fort Mandan was abandoned, one party of ten with the barge going down the river with despatches and specimens. Lewis and Clark with their party of thirty started up the Missouri in six canoes and two large open boats, which had been constructed by them. They had three interpreters--Drewyer, Chaboneau, and his wife. Drewyer was a Canadian half-breed who had always lived in the woods, and while he had inherited from his mother the intuitive sagacity of the Indian in following the faintest trail, he had also acquired to a wonderful degree that knowledge of the shifts and expedients of camp life which is the resource and pride of the frontier huntsman. Chaboneau's life had been largely spent among the Blackfeet, by whom his wife, a Snake Indian, had been taken in war and enslaved when a young girl.

At the mouth of the Little Missouri the three French hunters, who had ventured to follow the party, stopped for trapping, as they found beaver very plentiful. Chaboneau Creek, the farthest point on the Missouri yet visited by white men, was pa.s.sed, and on April 26th they arrived at the mouth of the Yellowstone. Lewis was here particularly pleased with the wide plains, interspersed with forests of various trees, and expressed his opinion that the situation was most suitable for a trading establishment.

Spring had now fairly opened, the trees were in leaf, a flower was seen, and despite the scanty verdure of the new gra.s.s, game was very abundant.

In many places, however, the barren banks and sand-bars were covered with a white incrustation of alkali salts, looking like frost or newly fallen snow, which were present in such quant.i.ties that all the small tributaries of the Missouri proved to be bitter and unhealthy water.

Signs of human life became rarer, but now and then they pa.s.sed an old Indian camp, and near one saw the burial place of an Indian woman. The body, carefully wrapped in dressed buffalo robes, rested on a high scaffold, with two sleds and harness over it. Nearby lay the remains of a dog sacrificed to the shades of his dead mistress. In a bag were articles fitting for women--moccasins, red and blue paint, beavers'

nails, sc.r.a.pers for dressing hides, dried roots, a little Mandan tobacco, and several plaits of sweet-smelling gra.s.s.

The oar was plied unceasingly save when a favoring wind filled their sails and facilitated their progress. In early May they drew up their canoes for the night at the mouth of a bold, beautiful stream, and in the abundant timber found feeding on the young willows so many clumsy porcupines that they called it Porcupine River. Game was present in vast quant.i.ties; the elk were tame, and the male buffalo would scarcely quit grazing at the approach of man. As Lewis remarks: "It has become an amus.e.m.e.nt to supply the party with provisions."

On May 8th they dined at the mouth of a river flowing from a level, well-watered, and beautiful country. As the water had a peculiar whiteness they were induced to call it Milk River. The Missouri now turned to the southwest and south, the country became more open, and timber, of pine mostly, small and scanty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Captain Meriwether Lewis.]

Although the buffalo were so tame and harmless that the men drove them out of their way with sticks, yet the grizzly bear never failed to be a dangerous and vicious visitor. One day six good hunters attacked a grizzly, and four firing at forty paces, each lodged a ball in the body, two going through the lungs. The animal ran at them furiously, when the other hunters fired two b.a.l.l.s into him, breaking a shoulder. The bear yet pursued them, driving two into a canoe and the others into thickets, from which they fired as fast as they could reload. Turning on them, he drove two so closely that they dropped their guns and sprang from a precipice twenty feet high into the river followed by the bear, who finally succ.u.mbed to a shot through the head after eight b.a.l.l.s had pa.s.sed completely through his body. Another bear, shot through the heart, ran a quarter of a mile with undiminished speed before he fell dead.

On the 20th, twenty-two hundred and seventy miles from St. Louis, they came to the greenish-yellow waters of the Musselsh.e.l.l, and a short distance beyond Captain Lewis caught his first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains, the object of his hope and ambition. Beyond the Musselsh.e.l.l their experiences were less pleasant: the country became more barren, game and timber scarce, mosquitoes annoying; the high dry winds, full of sand, made their eyes sore; the sun of midday burned, while almost every night ice or frost chilled them.

The clear waters of the Judith River and its woods beautiful with mult.i.tudinous mountain roses, the fragrant honeysuckle, and the tiny red willows delighted their eyes; but the sight of a hundred and twenty-six lately abandoned lodge-fires caused some uneasiness, as indicating a late camping-place of a war-party of vicious northern Minnetarees or Blackfeet.

A few miles farther, as they pa.s.sed a precipice a hundred and twenty feet high, they saw evidence of the cunning and wasteful methods of hunting by Indians, for the remains of over a hundred buffalo were scattered around, though the stream must have washed many away. Lewis adds: "These buffaloes had been chased down the precipice in a way very common on the Missouri, and by which vast herds are destroyed in a moment. The mode of hunting is to select one of the most active and fleet young men, who is disguised in a buffalo skin round his body. The skin of the head, with the ears and horns, are fastened on his own head in such a way as to deceive the buffalo. Thus dressed he fixes himself at a convenient distance between a herd of buffalo and any of the river precipices, which sometimes extend for several miles. His companions, in the meantime, get in the rear and side of the herd, and at a given signal show themselves and advance toward the buffalo. They instantly take the alarm, and finding the hunters beside them they run toward the disguised Indian or decoy, who leads them on at full speed toward the river, when suddenly securing himself in some crevice of the cliff, which he had previously fixed on, the herd is left on the brink of the precipice. It is then in vain for the foremost to retreat or even to stop; they are pressed on by the hindmost ranks, who, seeing no danger but from the hunters, goad on those before them till the whole are precipitated and the sh.o.r.e is strewed with their dead bodies. Sometimes in this perilous seduction the Indian himself is either trodden under foot or, missing his footing in the cliff, is urged down the precipice by the falling herd."

The river now took the form of frequent rapids, which made the work of dragging the heavy canoes very painful, and the narrative runs: "The banks are so slippery in some places, and the mud so adhesive, that the men are unable to wear moccasins. One-fourth of the time they are obliged to be up to their arm-pits in the cold water, and sometimes walk for yards over sharp fragments of rocks."

On June 3d they came to where the river divided into two large streams, and it became of vital importance to the expedition to determine which was the Missouri or Ahmateahza, as the Minnetarees called it, and which they said approached very near to the Columbia. The success of the expedition depended on the right decision, so Captain Lewis concluded to encamp until reconnoitering columns could examine the two forks.

Lewis following up the north branch, two days' march, decided that it was not the Missouri, and named it Maria's River. In returning he narrowly escaped slipping over a precipice some ninety feet high. Lewis had just reached a spot of safety when, says the narrative,

"He heard a voice behind him cry out, 'Good G.o.d, Captain, what shall I do?' He turned instantly and found it was Windsor, who had lost his foothold about the middle of the narrow pa.s.s and had slipped down to the very verge of the precipice, where he lay on his belly, with his right arm and leg over the precipice, while with the other leg and arm he was with difficulty holding on to keep himself from being dashed to pieces below. His dreadful situation was instantly perceived by Captain Lewis, who, stifling his alarm, calmly told him that he was in no danger, that he should take his knife out of his belt with the right hand and dig a hole in the side of the bluff to receive his foot. With great presence of mind he did this, and then raised himself on his knees. Captain Lewis then told him to take off his moccasins and come forward on his hands and knees, holding the knife in one hand and his rifle in the other. He immediately crawled in this way till he came to a secure spot."

One of Lieutenant Clark's party, on the south fork, at the same time, ran great danger from a grizzly bear which attacked near camp a man whose gun, being wet, would not go off. The man took to a tree, so closely followed by the animal that he struck the hunter's foot as he was climbing. The bear showed his intention of waiting until the man should be forced to descend, but fortunately alarmed by the cries and signal-shots of a searching-party decamped.

While Lewis and Clark concurred in believing the south fork to be the true Missouri, the rest of the party were unanimous in thinking the north the right course. Finally caching their heaviest boat and all the supplies which could well be spared, the entire party followed the south fork.

Lewis, pushing on confidently with four men, confirmed his opinion by reaching, on June 13th, the great falls of the Missouri, which by their sublime majesty and stupendous magnitude fascinated him. The description of these falls at the time of their first view by civilized man is worthy of reproduction. The river, three hundred yards wide, was shut in by precipitous cliffs, and "for ninety yards from the left cliff the water falls in one smooth sheet over a precipice of eighty feet. The rest of the river precipitates itself with a more rapid current, but received as it falls by the irregular and projecting rocks below, forms a splendid prospect of white foam two hundred yards in length.... This spray is dissipated in a thousand shapes.... As it rises from the fall it beats with fury against a ledge of rocks which extend across the river." On examination Lewis found that "the river for three miles below was one continued succession of rapids and cascades, overhung with perpendicular bluffs from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet high; in short, it seems to have worn itself a channel through the solid rock." At the main falls, five miles above the first, "the whole Missouri is suddenly stopped by one shelving rock, which without a single niche and with an edge as straight and regular as if formed by art, stretches itself from one side of the river to the other for at least a quarter of a mile. Over this the river precipitates itself in an even, uninterrupted sheet to the perpendicular depth of fifty feet, whence, dashing against the rocky bottom, it rushes rapidly down, leaving behind it a spray of the purest foam across the river. The scene was singularly beautiful, without any of the wild irregular sublimity of the lower falls." In a cottonwood tree, on a small island in the middle of the rapids, an eagle had fixed its nest, a solitary bird which had not escaped the observation of the Indians, who had previously described it to Lewis.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

On leaving the falls Lewis saw a herd of a thousand buffalo, and killed one for supper. In his eagerness he failed to reload his rifle, when he beheld a grizzly bear stealing on him and not over twenty paces distant.

"He felt that there was no safety but in flight. It was in the open, level plain, ... so that there was no possible mode of concealment....

As soon as he turned the bear ran, open mouthed and at full speed, upon him. Captain Lewis ran about eighty yards, but finding that the animal gained on him fast ... he turned short, plunged into the river about waist deep, and facing about presented the point of his spontoon. The bear arrived at the water's edge within twenty feet of him, but as soon as he put himself in this posture of defence, the animal seemed frightened and retreated with as much precipitation as he had pursued."

The means and route for portage presented difficult problems for the exhausted party, as it was clearly evident that the men could not carry the boats on their shoulders such great distances. Fortunately a creek was found at the foot of the falls, where the banks afforded easy access to the highlands. It was first necessary to cross the Missouri, and here the party went into camp while preparations were made for the portage.

Lieut. Clark with a few men carefully surveyed the trail to be followed, others engaged in hunting in order to lay up a store of dried meat, and the handy men of the party set to work on a carriage for the transport of the boats. By good fortune they found a large cottonwood-tree, about twenty-two inches in diameter, large enough to make the carriage-wheels, "perhaps the only tree of that size within twenty miles." As they had decided to cache a part of their stores and leave their largest boat behind, its mast supplied them with two axle-trees.

In the meantime the survey of Clark showed that the series of cataracts had an aggregate descent of three hundred and sixty-three feet in seventeen miles, and that a very difficult portage of thirteen miles was necessary. The country was barely practicable for travel, and was covered with frequent patches of p.r.i.c.kly pear, against the tiny penetrating needles of which the moccasins of the dragging men afforded almost no protection. To add to their misfortunes, when about five miles from their destination the axle-trees, made of the old mast, broke, and then the tongues of green cottonwood gave way. After diligent search sweet-willow trees were found with which they managed, by shifts and expedients familiar to frontiersmen, to patch up the carriage so as to go on. It broke down so completely about a half mile from the new camp that it was easier to carry boat and baggage on their shoulders than to build a new conveyance. The condition of the party is evident from the narrative:

"The men are loaded as heavily as their strength will permit; the crossing is really painful; some are limping with the soreness of their feet, others are scarcely able to stand for more than a few minutes from the heat and fatigue; they are all obliged to halt and rest frequently, and at almost every stopping-place they fall, and many of them are asleep in an instant."