Travels in North America, From Modern Writers

The fisheries supply the Solkuks with a competent, if not an abundant subsistence. Fish is, indeed, their chief food; except roots, and the casual supplies of the antelope, which, to those who have only bows and arrows, must be very scanty. Most of the Solkuks have sore eyes, and many of them are blind of one or both eyes; and decayed teeth are very common among them.

The party proceeded down the Columbia. Fish was here so abundant, that in one day's voyage, they counted no fewer than twenty stacks of dried salmon.

They passed the falls of this river. These are not great; but, at a little distance below them, a very remarkable scene is presented to the view. At a place where the river is about four hundred yards wide, and where the stream flows with a current more rapid than usual, it widens into a large bend or basin, at the extremity of which a black rock, rising perpendicularly from the right shore, seems to run wholly across. So completely did it appear to block up the passage, that the travellers could not, as they approached, see where the water escaped; except that the current appeared to be drawn with peculiar velocity towards the left of the rock, where there was a great roaring. On landing, to survey it, they found that, for about half a mile, the river was confined within a channel only forty-five yards wide, whirling, swelling, and boiling, the whole way, with the wildest agitation imaginable. Tremendous as the pass was, they attempted it; and, to the astonishment of the Indians, they accomplished it in safety.

In the vicinity of this place, a tribe of Indians, called Echeloots, were settled. Here the travellers, for the first time, since they had left the Illinois country, observed wooden buildings. The floors were sunk about six feet in the ground, a custom implying at the same time a cold and dry climate.

Proceeding on their way, they saw an Indian, dressed in a round hat and a sailor's jacket, with his hair tied. Jackets, brass kettles, and other European or American articles, were observed to be common. These Indians are fond of ornamenting their boats and houses with rude sculptures and paintings. One of the chiefs exhibited, from what was called his great medicine-bag, fourteen fore-fingers, the trophies taken from as many enemies, whom he had killed in war. This was the first time that the travellers had known any other trophy preserved than the scalp. The great medicine-bag, among these Indians, is an useful invention; for, as it is deemed sacrilegious for any person, except the owner, to touch it, this bag serves the purpose of a strong-box, in which the most valuable articles may safely be deposited.

The Echeloots in their mode of sepulture, differ much from the generality of North American Indians. They have common cemeteries, where the dead, carefully wrapt in skins, are laid on mats, in a direction east and west. The vaults, or rather chambers, in which the bodies are deposited, are about eighty feet square, and six in height. The whole of the sides are covered with strange figures, cut and painted; and wooden images are placed against them. At the top of these sepulchral chambers, and on poles attached to them, brass-kettles are hung, old frying-pans, shells, skins, and baskets, pieces of cloth, hair, and other similar offerings. Among some of the tribes, the body is laid in one canoe and covered with another. Every where the dead are carefully deposited, and with like marks of respect. Captain Clarke says it is obvious, from the different articles which are placed by the dead, that these people believe in a future state of existence.

On the 2d of November, the travellers perceived the first tide-water; four days afterwards, they had the pleasure of hearing a few words of English, spoken by an Indian, who talked of a Mr. Haley, as the principal trader on the coast; and, on the 7th, a fog clearing off, gave them a sight of the Pacific Ocean.

They suffered great hardships near the mouth of the river. At one place, where they were detained two nights by the violence of the wind, the waves broke over them, and large trees, which the stream had carried along with it, were drifted upon them, so that, with their utmost vigilance, they could scarcely save the canoes from being dashed to pieces. Their next haven was still more perilous: the hills rose steep over their heads, to the height of five hundred feet; and, as the rain fell in torrents, the stones, upon their crumbling sides, loosened, and came rolling down upon them. The canoes, in one place, were at the mercy of the waves; the baggage was in another place; and the men were scattered upon floating logs, or were sheltering themselves in the crevices of the rocks.

The travellers, having now reached the farthest limits of their journey, once more began to look out for winter-quarters. But it was not till after a long search, that they discovered, at some distance from the shore, and near the banks of the Columbia, a situation in all respects convenient. But so incessant was the rain, that they were unable to complete their arrangements, till about the middle of December. Here, in latitude 46 degrees, 19 minutes, they passed three months, without experiencing any thing like the cold of the interior; but they were, in other respects, exposed to numerous inconveniences. The supply of food was precarious; being confined to the fish caught along the sea-coasts, and to a few elks and other animals, which were killed in the adjacent country.

The Indians, in this part of America, had been accustomed to traffic, along the shore, with European vessels, and had learned to ask exorbitant prices for their commodities. Their circulating money consisted of blue beads; but with these, as well as with other merchandise, their visitors were, at this time, very scantily supplied. These Indians were unacquainted with the use of ardent spirits, but they were no strangers to the vice of gaming.

During the winter, Captains Lewis and Clarke occupied much of their time in acquiring information concerning the country; and obtained some account of the number of tribes, languages, and population of the inhabitants, for about three hundred and sixty miles southward, along the coast; but of those in an opposite direction, they were unable to learn any thing more than their names.

The people of the four nations with whom they had the most intercourse; the Killamucks, Clatsops, Chinnoocks, and Cathlamahs, were diminutive and ill-made. Their complexions were somewhat lighter than those of the other North American Indians: their mouths were wide, their lips thick, and their noses broad, and generally flat between the eyes.

All the tribes who were seen west of the Rocky Mountain, have their foreheads flattened. The child, in order to be thus beautified, has its head placed in a kind of machine, where it is kept for ten or twelve months; the females longer than the males. The operation is gradual, and seems to give but little pain; but if it produces headache, the poor infant has no means of making its sufferings known. The head, when released from its bandage, Captain Clarke says, is not more than two inches thick, about the upper part of the forehead; and still thinner above. Nothing can appear more wonderful, than that the brain should have its shape thus altered, without any apparent injury to its functions.

There is an extensive trade carried on upon the Columbia, which must have existed before the coast was frequented by foreign traders; but to which the foreign trade has given a new impulse. The great emporium of this trade is at the falls, the Shilloots being the carriers between the inhabitants above and below. The Indians of the Rocky Mountains bring down bear's-grease, horses, and a few skins, which they exchange for beads, pounded fish, and the roots of a kind of water-plant, which are produced, in great abundance, in a tract of land between the Multomah and a branch of the Columbia. The mode of obtaining these roots is curious. A woman carries a canoe, large enough to contain herself, and several bushels of them, to one of the ponds where the plants grow; she goes into the water breast high, feels out the roots with her feet, and separates the bulbs from them with her toes. These, on being freed from the mud, float. The women often continue in the water at this employment for many successive hours, even in the depth of winter. The bulbs are about the size of a small potato, and, when roasted in wood ashes, constitute a palatable food.

These Indians are a very ingenious race. Even with their own imperfect tools, they make, in a few weeks, a canoe, which, with such implements, might be thought the work of years. A canoe, however, is very highly prized: it is considered of equal value with a wife, and is what the lover generally gives a father in exchange for his daughter. The bow and stern are ornamented with a sort of comb, and with grotesque figures of men or animals, sometimes five feet high, composed of small pieces of wood, skilfully inlaid and morticed, without a spike of any kind. Their bowls or troughs are scooped out of a block of wood; in these they boil their food. Their best manufacture is a sort of basket, of straw-work or cedar bark, and bear-grass, so closely interwoven as to be water-tight. Further south the natives roast their corn and pulse over a slow charcoal-fire, in baskets of this description, moving the basket about in such manner that it is not injured, though every grain within it is completely browned.

Among these Indians the women are well treated, and enjoy an extraordinary degree of influence. On many subjects their opinions are consulted: in matters of trade, their advice is generally asked and pursued. Sometimes they even take upon themselves a tone of authority; and the labours of the family are almost equally divided. No account is given by Captain Lewis of the superstitions of these people; and no inquiry seems to have been made concerning their religious belief.

Narrative of the return of Captains Lewis and Clarke, from the Pacific Ocean to St. Louis

The commanders of the expedition were desirous of remaining on the coast of the Pacific till the arrival of the annual trading ships, hoping from them to be able to recruit their almost exhausted stores of merchandise; but, though these were expected in April, it was found impossible to wait. The elks, on which they chiefly depended for subsistence, had retreated to the mountains; and, if the Indians could have sold them food, they were too poor to purchase it. The whole stock of goods, on which they had to depend, for the purchase of horses and food, during a journey homeward, of nearly four thousand miles, was so much diminished, that it might all have been tied in two pocket-handkerchiefs. Their muskets, however, were in excellent order, and they had plenty of powder and shot.

On the 23d of March, 1806, the canoes were loaded, and they took a final leave of their encampment. Previously to their departure, they deposited, in the hands of the Indian chiefs, some papers specifying the dates of the arrival and departure of the expedition. This was done in a hope that at least some one of them might find its way into a civilized country. The course homeward was, during the first month, by water; the canoes being dragged, or carried overland, in places where the current of the Columbia was too strong to be navigated. On these occasions, the travellers were exposed to much annoyance from the pilfering habits of the Indians; and their provisions were so scanty that they were obliged to subsist on dog's-flesh: a diet which, at first, was extremely loathsome to them, but to which they in time became reconciled.

The difficulties of the navigation made it expedient for them to leave the canoes at some distance below the junction of the Columbia with Lewis's river, after which they prosecuted their journey on horseback. Proceeding in an easterly direction, they arrived, on the seventh of May, within sight of the Rocky Mountains, and saw the tops of these mountains completely covered with snow. Anxious, however, to cross them as early as they could, they lost no time in recovering their horses from the Chopunnish Indians, and in extracting their stores from the hiding places in the ground. Still it was necessary for them to encamp for a few weeks, that they might occupy themselves in hunting, and that the health of the invalids might be reinstated.

Here Captains Lewis and Clarke practised physic among the natives, as one means of supplying themselves with provisions. Their stock of merchandise was reduced so low, that they were obliged to cut off the buttons from their clothes, and to present them, with phials and small tin boxes, as articles of barter with the Indians; and, by means of these humble commodities, they were enabled to procure some roots and bread, as provision during their passage over the Rocky Mountains, which they commenced on the tenth of June.

Towards the middle of June the fall of the rivers showed that the great body of snow on the mountains was at last melted; and they ventured to leave their encampment, against the advice of several of the Indians. They, however, soon found that they had been premature in their motions; for, on the higher grounds, there was no appearance whatever of vegetation. The snow, which covered the whole country, was indeed sufficiently hard to bear the horses, but it was still ten or twelve feet deep; so that a further prosecution of their journey was, at present, impossible; and the travellers, after having deposited, in this upper region, their baggage, and such provisions as they could spare, reluctantly traced back their steps to the plain. There they remained ten days; and, on the 26th, they again began to ascend the lofty ridge; the snow on which had, in the interval, melted nearly four feet, leaving still a depth of six or seven. They now implicitly followed the steps of their guides, who traversed this trackless region with a kind of instinctive sagacity: these men never hesitated respecting the path, and were never embarrassed. In three days they once more reached the stream which, in their former journey, they had named Traveller's Rest Creek.

Here Captains Lewis and Clarke agreed to separate, for the purpose of taking a more comprehensive survey of the country in their journey homeward. It was considered desirable to acquire a further knowledge of the Yellow-stone, a large river which flows from the south-west, more than one thousand miles before it reaches the Missouri; and it was of importance to ascertain, more accurately than they had hitherto done, the course of Maria's river.

The separation took place on the 3d of July; and Captain Lewis, holding on an eastern course, crossed a large stream which flowed towards the Columbia, and which had already been named Clarke's river. On the 18th of July he came to Maria's river, the object of his search; and he continued for several days, his route along its northern bank. After having ascertained the course of this river, he again set out on his journey homeward, that he might not lose the opportunity of returning before the winter.

He and his companions were only four in number; and, in one part of their journey, they had an alarming intercourse with a party of Indians. Not very long after this they embarked on the Missouri; and, with the aid of their oars and the current, they proceeded at the rate of between sixty and eighty miles a day. On the 7th of August they reached the mouth of the Yellow-stone river, the place of rendezvous, appointed with Captain Clarke. Here, by a note stuck upon a pole, they were informed that he had accomplished his voyage along that river, and would wait for them lower down the Missouri.

Captain Clarke, on quitting the central encampment at Traveller's Rest Creek, had marched in a southerly direction, and had traversed a distance of one hundred and sixty-four miles, to the head of Jefferson's river. This journey was performed, on horseback, and in six days, over a country by no means difficult; so that, in future, the passage of this elevated region will be divested of a considerable portion of its terrors. He also discovered that the communication between the Upper Missouri and the Yellow-stone river, was attended with little trouble; for Gallatin's river, one of the tributary streams of the Missouri, approaches within eighteen miles of the Yellow-stone, and, at a place, where the latter is completely navigable.

Being unable to find wood of sufficient magnitude for the formation of canoes, Captain Clarke and his men were obliged to proceed on horseback, about one hundred miles down the side of this river. At length they succeeded in constructing boats, and sailed down the remainder of this stream with great rapidity. On the 27th, at the distance of two hundred miles from the Rocky Mountains, they beheld that elevated region for the last time. The Yellow-stone being easy of navigation, they reached the place of rendezvous earlier than they had expected.

The whole party being now assembled below the conflux of the Yellow-stone and Missouri rivers, they prosecuted the remainder of their voyage together; experiencing, in the prospect of home, and in the ease with which they descended the river, a compensation for all their fatigues; and receiving the visits of various tribes of Indians who resided upon its banks.

The greatest change which was experienced by them, in their southward progress, was that of climate. They had passed nearly two years, in a cool, open country, and they were now descending into wooded plains, eight or ten degrees further to the south, but differing in heat much more than is usual in a correspondent distance in Europe. They were likewise greatly tormented by musquitoes.

On landing at La Charrette, the first village on this side of the United States, they were joyfully received by the inhabitants, who had long abandoned all hopes of their return. On the 23d of September they descended the Mississippi to St. Louis, which place they reached about noon; having, in two years and nine months, completed a journey of nearly nine thousand miles.

At St. Louis we shall resume the narrative of Mr. Pike, who, in the month of July, 1806, set out from that place on an expedition westward, through the immense territory of Louisiana, towards New Spain. The chief objects of this expedition were to arrange an amicable treaty between the Americans and Indians of this quarter; and to ascertain the direction, extent, and navigation, of two great rivers, known by the names of Arkansaw and Red River.

Eighteenth Day's Instruction.

WESTERN TERRITORY CONCLUDED

Narrative of Mr. Pike's Journey from St. Louis, through Louisiana, to Santa Fé, New Spain

The party engaged in this expedition, were Mr. Pike and another lieutenant, a surgeon, a serjeant, two corporals, sixteen private soldiers, and one interpreter. They had, under their charge, some chiefs of the Osage and Pawnee nations, who, with several women and children, had been redeemed from captivity, and now, to the number of fifty-one, were about to be restored to their friends.

They set out from St. Louis on the 15th of July, 1806, and proceeded, in two boats, up the Missouri. About six miles from the village of St. Charles, they passed a hill of solid coal, so extensive that it would probably afford fuel sufficient for the whole population of Louisiana.

Mr. Pike says that, every morning, he was awaked by the lamentations of the savages who accompanied him. These invariably began to cry about day-light, and continued to do so for an hour. On enquiry respecting this practice, he was informed that it was customary, not only with persons who had recently lost their friends; but also with others who called to mind the loss of some friend, dead long before. They seemed to be extremely affected: tears ran down their cheeks, and they sobbed bitterly; but, when the hour was expired, they, in a moment, ceased their cries, and dried their cheeks.

In their progress up the river, the Indians walked along the banks, and, every night, encamped near the boats. On the 28th the boats reached the mouth of the Osage river. For some distance the southern shore of the Missouri had been hilly, and covered with trees; and on the north were low bottoms and heavy timber. The soil was rich, and well adapted for cultivation.

They entered the Osage, and encountered few difficulties in their voyage up that river. From the shores, the hunters amply supplied the whole party with provisions; deer, turkeys, geese, and game of different kinds.

From the mouth of the Osage to that of the Gravel river, a distance of one hundred and eighteen miles, the banks of the former are covered with timber, which grows in a rich soil. Low hills, with rocks, alternately border the eastern and western shores: the lower grounds have excellent soil, and the whole adjacent country abounds in game. From the Gravel-river to to the Yungar, the Osage continues to exhibit the appearance of a fertile and well-timbered country.

The Indians joined their friends on the 15th, after which Mr. Pike and his party proceeded alone. On the ensuing day they passed the mouth of the Grand Fork, which was nearly as wide as the Osage; and, soon afterwards, reached the villages of the Osage Indians. The country adjacent to these villages is extremely beautiful. Three branches of the river wind round them, giving to their vicinity the advantages of wood and water, and, at the same time, those of an extensive prairie, crowned with rich and luxuriant grass and flowers, diversified by rising swells and sloping lawns.

The Osage Indians, in language, habits, and many of their customs, differ little from other tribes which inhabit the country near the Missouri and Mississippi. They raise great quantities of corn, beans, and pumpkins; and all the agricultural labour is performed by women. The government is vested in a few of the chiefs, whose office is, in most instances, hereditary; but these never undertake any affair of importance, without first assembling the warriors, and proposing the subject for discussion in council. The Osage Indians are divided into classes: those of the principal class are warriors and hunters; and the others are cooks and doctors. The last exercise the function of priests or magicians; and, by pretended divinations, interpretations of dreams, and magical performances, they have great influence in the councils of the nation: they also exercise the office of town-criers. Many old warriors assume the profession of cooks: these do not carry arms, and are supported by the public, or by particular families to which they are attached.

When a stranger enters the Osage village, he is received, in a patriarchal style, at the lodge of the chief. He is then invited, by all the great men of the village, to a feast. The cooks proclaim the feast, in different parts of the village, "Come and eat: such a one gives a feast, come and partake of his bounty." The dishes are generally boiled sweet corn, served up in buffalo grease; or boiled meat and pumpkins.

From the Osage villages, Mr. Pike, and his men, accompanied by several Indians, proceeded, on horseback, in a somewhat westerly direction, towards the river Arkansaw. In some places the country was hilly, and commanded beautiful prospects. The wild animals were so numerous, that Mr. Pike, standing on one of the hills, beheld, at a single view, buffaloes, elks, deer, and panthers. Beyond this they passed through numerous herds of buffaloes, elks, and other animals. In many places the country was very deficient in water.

On the 17th of September they reached a branch of the Kanzes river, the water of which was strongly impregnated with salt, as was that of many of the creeks. At some distance beyond this river, they were met by a party of Pawnee Indians; one of whom wore a scarlet coat, and had two medals: each of the others had a buffalo robe thrown over his naked body.

From the eastern branch of the Kanzes river, to the village of the Pawnee Indians, the prairies are low, the grass is high, the country abounds in saline places, and the soil appears to be impregnated with particles of nitre and of common salt. The immediate borders of the river near the village, consist of lofty ridges; but this is an exception to the general appearance of the country.