THE LAST STAGE OF THE WESTWARD JOURNEY
Should a water route be taken from the Shoshone villages, it would be
necessary to descend the Lemhi to Salmon River; the Salmon would
conduct them to the Snake, and that to the Columbia. But they were told
that this course was impracticable. The Lemhi flowed in an ungovernable
torrent through wild canyons which the hardiest adventurers from this
tribe had never succeeded in passing. The description given by the
Indians of the land route over the mountains was hardly more
reassuring. The easiest trail to be found would be rough in the
extreme, strewn with rocks; besides, snow would soon fall upon the
heights of the mountains, burying the trail many feet deep, and perhaps
rendering it impassable. The greatest cause for uneasiness lay in the
inevitable scarcity of food. Even should a crossing of the mountains be
effected, the men would be obliged to subsist for many days largely or
wholly upon such roots as they could dig by the way. Of the provisions
brought from St. Louis,--flour and canned stuff,--there remained barely
enough to suffice for ten days' emergency rations; and of course they
could not hope to find game upon the barren mountains, particularly at
that season of the year. They were just entering upon their severest
trials.
Captain Clark went ahead to reconnoitre, and found that the Indians had
rather understated the difficulties of the water route. To descend the
Lemhi was entirely out of the question. Clark dispatched a messenger to
Captain Lewis, telling of what he had discovered, and wrote in his
journal (August 24th):--
"The plan I stated to Captain Lewis if he agrees with me we shall adopt
is to precure as many horses (one for each man) if possable and to hire
my present guide who I sent on to him to interegate thro' the Intptr.
and proceed on by land to some navagable part of the Columbia river, or
to the Ocean, depending on what provisions we can Precure by the gun
aded to the small stock we have on hand depending on our horses as the
last resort."
While he was writing so calmly of his plan, he and his men were
suffering from hunger, having only a meagre supply of fish and dried
berries. A day or two later he wrote:--
"These Indians, to whom this life is familiar, seem contented, although
they depend for subsistence on the scanty provisions of the fishery.
But our men, who are used to hardships, but have been accustomed to
have the first wants of Nature regularly supplied, feel very sensibly
their wretched situation; their strength is wasting away; they begin to
express their apprehensions of being without food in a country
perfectly destitute of any means of supporting life, except a few
fish."
Horses were purchased from the Shoshones, and the men were employed in
making pack-saddles. As there was no timber to be obtained near by, the
oars were cut up for boards, and these were fastened into form with
thongs of rawhide. With the best provision that could be made, however,
it was apparent that a considerable portion of the baggage must be
cached and left behind. At a time when the needs of the men would be
greatest, they were obliged to provide themselves with least.
The Shoshones were hospitable and kindly folk. Throughout these days of
preparation, the women were engaged in making and repairing moccasins
and clothing for the men, and the fishermen gave to them a good share
of the daily catch. Nor was the kindness all upon the one side. The
white hunters, with their guns, had greater success than the Indians,
who were armed only with bows and arrows and lances. Share and share
alike was the rule in the village. Once when the hunters brought in a
deer, Captain Clark directed that it be given to the women and
children, who were in an extremity of hunger, and himself went
supperless to bed.
One of the older men was induced to accompany them as a guide. By the
middle of September they were deep in the mountains, and also deep in
peril and suffering. The cold had a depressing effect upon the men,
overworked and underfed as they were. For several days they got along
somehow, with a few odds and ends of small game; but on the 14th of
September, Captain Clark's prevision was fulfilled, and they were
reduced to supping upon the flesh of one of their ponies. Then on the
next day,--
"September 15th. Camped near an old snow-bank, some of which was
melted, in the absence of water; and here the party supped on the
remains of the colt killed yesterday. Our only game to-day was two
pheasants; the horses, on which we calculated as a last resource, began
to fail us, for two of them were so poor and worn out with fatigue that
we were obliged to leave them behind.
"September 16th. Three hours before daybreak it began to snow, and
continued all day, so that by evening it was six or eight inches deep.
This covered the track so completely that we were obliged constantly to
halt and examine, lest we should lose the route. In many places we had
nothing to guide us, except the branches of the trees, which, being
low, had been rubbed by the burdens of the Indian horses.... Wet to the
skin, and so cold that we were anxious lest our feet should be frozen,
as we had only thin moccasins to defend them.... We camped on a piece
of low ground, thickly timbered, but scarcely large enough to permit us
to lie level. We had now made thirteen miles. We were all very wet,
cold, and hungry.... Were obliged to kill a second colt for our
supper."
Of the stock of portable provisions there remained only a few cans of
soup and about twenty pounds of bear's oil; and there was "no living
creature in these mountains, except a few pheasants, a small species of
gray squirrel, and a blue bird of the vulture kind about the size of a
turtle-dove or jay; even these are difficult to shoot."
Again Captain Clark went ahead. For several days he suffered extremely
from hunger and exposure; but on the 20th he descended into an open
valley, where he came upon a band of Nez Perce Indians, who gave him
food. But after his long abstinence, when he ate a plentiful meal of
fish his stomach revolted, and for several days he was quite ill.
Matters fared badly with Captain Lewis's party, following on Clark's
trail. On the day of Clark's departure, they could not leave their
night's camp until nearly noon, "because, being obliged in the evening
to loosen our horses to enable them to find subsistence, it is always
difficult to collect them in the morning.... We were so fortunate as to
kill a few pheasants and a prairie wolf, which, with the remainder of
the horse, supplied us with one meal, the last of our provisions; our
food for the morrow being wholly dependent on the chance of our guns."
Bearing heavy burdens, and losing much time with the continued straying
of the horses, they made but indifferent progress, and it was not until
the 22d that they reached the Nez Perce village and joined Captain
Clark. Then they, too, almost to a man, suffered severe illness, caused
by the unwonted abundance of food. From the high altitudes and the
scant diet of horseflesh to the lower levels of the valley and a
plentiful diet of fish and camass-root was too great a change.
Two of the men in particular had cause to remember those days. They had
been sent back to find and bring on some of the horses that were lost.
Failing to find the animals, after a long search, they started to
overtake their companions. They had no provisions, nor could they find
game of any kind. Death by starvation was close upon them, when they
found the head of one of the horses that had been killed by their
mates. The head had been thrown aside as worthless; but to these two it
was a veritable godsend. It was at once roasted, and from the flesh and
gristle of the lips, ears, and cheeks they made a meal which saved
their lives.
The Nez Perce villages were situated upon a stream called the
Kooskooskee, or Clearwater, which the Indians said was navigable for
canoes throughout its lower lengths; so, on September 26th, the party
established itself at a point upon the river where a supply of timber
could be had, and began canoe-making. In this they adopted the Indian
method of hollowing large logs into form by means of fire; and in ten
days' time they had made five serviceable boats, and were ready for
departure. Meanwhile, they had relied upon the Indians for a daily
supply of food, and this had made a considerable reduction of their
stock of merchandise for barter. The Nez Perces of that and neighboring
villages kept a large number of dogs, which were used as beasts of
burden and otherwise, but were not eaten. The travelers bought some of
these for food, and found them palatable and nutritious; but this
practice excited the ridicule of the savages, who gave to the whites
the name Dog-Eaters,--an odd reversal of the condition of to-day. The
men were proof against scorn, however, so long as the supply of
dog-meat held out; and when they were ready to embark, they bought as
many dogs as they could carry, to be eaten on the voyage.
There was no reason to complain of the Nez Perces. There was a
noticeable difference, though, between the people of the several
villages. Some were generous and high-minded to a degree rarely equaled
by the members of any race, while others were shrewd tradesmen only.
All seemed worthy of confidence, which was well; for it was necessary
to put confidence in them. The horses that had been bought from the
Shoshones and brought across the mountains had now to be left behind,
and they were surrendered to the care of one of the principal chiefs,
to be kept by him until they should be reclaimed upon the return from
the coast, at some indefinite time in the future. He discharged this
trust with perfect fidelity. Had he failed, the consequences would have
been disastrous.
On October 16th, after a rapid passage of the Kooskooskee, the party
entered the Columbia; and from that point to the Pacific the journey
was without particular adventure, save for the difficulty of passing
numerous rapids and cascades. Indian villages were everywhere upon the
banks; but their people were of a very low order,--very jackals of
humanity; dirty, flea-bitten packs, whose physical and moral
constitutions plainly showed the debilitating effects of unnumbered
generations of fish-eating, purposeless life. Physical and moral
decency usually go hand in hand, even in a state of nature. The
Columbia tribes had no conception of either; they were in the same
condition then as now, mean-spirited, and strangers to all those little
delicacies of behavior that had distinguished the mountain tribes.
The passage of the Narrows, above the Falls of the Columbia, trusting
to their fire-hollowed logs, demanded much daring and self-possession.
Captain Clark wrote:--
"As the portage of our canoes over this high rock would be impossible
with our Strength, and the only danger in passing thro those narrows
was the whorls and swills arriseing from the compression of the water,
and which I thought (as also our principal waterman Peter Crusat) by
good stearing we could pass down safe, accordingly I deturmined to pass
through this place, not with standing the horred appearance of this
agitated gut swelling, boiling & whorling in every direction which from
the top of the rock did not appear as bad as when I was in it; however
we passed safe to the astonishment of the Inds."
At other times they were not so successful in this sort of undertaking.
The canoes were often overset in the swift water, by being caught in
whirlpools or colliding with rocks, causing great inconvenience and
resulting in some serious losses of baggage. And the men were
performing this arduous labor upon a diet of dog-meat, and almost
nothing besides.
No matter what difficulties presented themselves from day to day, the
officers never lost sight of the chief purpose of their toils. The
journals of those days are replete with keen notes upon the country,
its resources, and its people. Soon after passing the Falls, there were
to be seen occasional signs of previous intercourse between the Indians
and the white traders who had visited the coast,--the squaws would
display a bit of colored cloth in their costumes; a few of the men
carried ancient guns, and occasionally one was decorated with a ruinous
old hat or the remains of a sailor's pea-jacket. These poor people had
touched the hem of the garment of civilization, and had felt some of
its meaner virtue pass into them. They showed daily less and less of
barbaric manliness; they were becoming from day to day more vicious,
thievish, and beggarly. The whites had as yet given them nothing worth
having, and had taught them nothing worth knowing. This was but
natural, considering the character of those who had visited the
Columbia region. They were not missionaries nor philanthropists,
actuated by high desires, but traders pure and simple, with no thought
but gain, and no scruples about means. They were not different from the
pioneers of trade in all times and all places.
November 6th there was a meeting with an Indian who spoke a few scrappy
words of English; and on the 7th, a day of rain and fog, the men caught
a far glimpse of the Pacific, ... "that ocean, the object of all our
labors, the reward of all our anxieties. This cheering view exhilarated
the spirits of all the party, who were still more delighted on hearing
the distant roar of the breakers." The following day, as the boats
proceeded upon the waters of the inlet, the waves ran so high that
several of the men were made sea-sick.
After eighteen months of unparalleled perseverance, the westward
journey was done.