History of the expedition under the command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri, thence across the Rocky mountains and down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean : performed during the years 1804-5-6 by order of the government of the United States; Volume 1

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the stinl{ing lal~e was a g1•eat distance, and that the route to it, taken by such of his relations as had visited it, was up the river on which they lived, and over to that on which the white proplc lived, and which they knew discha•·ged it. self into the ocean. This route he advised us to take, but added, that we had better defer the journey till spring, when he would himself conduct us. This account pe1·suaded us that the streams of which he SfJOke WCl'e southc1·n branches of the Columbia, heading with the Rio des Apostolos, and Rio Colorado, and that the •·outc which he mentioned was to the gulf of California: captain Clarke therefore told him that this •·oad was too much towat•ds the south for· our· pur­pose, and then requested to know if thet·e was no route on the left of the river whet•e we now al'c, by which we might in­tercept it balow the mountains; but he knew of none except that through the baJ'l'en plains, which he said joined the mountains on that side, and tlu·ough which it was impossible to J>ass at this season, even if we wer·c fortunate enough to escape the Bt•okcn-moccasin lndiaus. Vaptain Clarke re­compensed the lndiau by a present of a knife, with which he seemed much g•·atitied, and now inquit·cd of Cameahwait by what t·oute the Pierced-nose Indians, who he said lived west of the mountains, CI'Osscd over to the Missouri: this be said was towards the north, but that the road was a very Lad one; that dm·ing the passage he had been t.old they suf'­fcr ·ed cxcesshclJ f•·om bungct·, being obliged to subsist for many days on l>ct•ries alone, thct·e being no game in that part of the mountains, which wc•·e broken and rocky, and so thickly covered with timhct' that they could scarcely pass. Surrounded by difticultirs as all the othet· routes arc, this seems to be the ruost pr·acticablc of aU the passages by land, since, if the Indians can pass the mountains wit.h their· WCi>­men and children, no difficulties which they could encounter could be formidable to us; and if the Indians below the mountains are so numerous as they ar·o represented to be, they must have some means of subsistence equally within Up the Missotu·i. S95 our power. 'fhey tell us indeed that the nations to the wes~­ward subsist pa·incipally on fish and t·oots, and that th~Ir only game we1·c a few elk, dcrl', and an f r loJH.'': tb~re bemg no buffaloe west of the mountain. ri'he fi1·st mq Uli'Y how­ever was (o ascci'Lain the t•·nth of thei•· inf'ot·mation relative to the diffieulfy of desf•cuding the river: for this IlUl'(lOSe captain Clarke set out at tht'<'ll o'clock in the aft.er·noon, ac­companied hy the guide and all his men, c~c~pt ~ne whom he left with orders to purchase a horse and J0111 lum as soon as possible. At the distance of four miles he crossed. the rivc1·, and ciglJt miles from the c~ampl•allcd for the mght at a small stl'eam. The road which he followed was a beaten ]mth through a. wide ri<•b meadow, in which were several old lodges . . On the route he met a numucr of men, women, and children, as well as hot·ses, and one or the men who ap­peal ·cd to possess some considtwation t ul'ncd back _witla him, and observing a \\oman with thr·ee salmon obtaJ~ed ... them from he1·, and presented them to the party. Capta111 Clat:ke shot a mountain cock OL' cock of the plains, a dark lH·own b1rd Ia1·ger than the dunghill fowl, with a long and pointed tail, and a fleshy protubcl'&uaec about the ba c of the upper chO)l, something like tJaat of the tul'liry, though without the snout. In the mot·n iug, Wednesday ~1, he resumed his march early, .and at. t~1e distanc.c of five miles reached an l ndian lodge o{ lwush, m­habitcd by seven families ol' Shoshoncrs. They behaved with great civility, gave the whole }Htrly as much boi~ed salmon as tla<'y could cat, and added as a JH'Cscot several dt'lCd salmon and a considerable quantity of chokecherries. Af­ter smoking with them all he visited the fish wcil·, whic~1 was about two hundred yards distant; the river was hca·c dt­vidcd by thl'ee small islands, which occasioned the watc1~ to pass along four· channels. Of these three wct·c nal'l'ow, and stoppetl by means of trees which were stretched across, and supported by willow stakes, sufficiently near each other to p1·event the passage of the fish. About. the centre of each was