Part 18 (1/2)

We find New Orleans to be one of the chief seaports of America. We see s.h.i.+pping of all sorts about the town--barges and flatboats along the river bank, merchant vessels in the harbor, and farther down some war-s.h.i.+ps.

There are buildings still standing which are unchanged parts of the earlier French town--for instance, the government house, the barracks, the hospital, and the convent of the Ursulines. We notice that the walls and fortifications, built partly by the French and partly by the Spaniards, are but a mere ring of gra.s.s-grown ruins about the city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Public Building in New Orleans Built in 1794.]

But the city is very picturesque with its tropical vegetation, always green, and its quaint houses, many of them raised several feet above the ground on pillars. The more pretentious mansions are surrounded by broad verandas and fine gardens, and scattered here and there among the houses of the better cla.s.s are those of the poor people.

The streets are straight and fairly wide, but dirty and ill-kept. The sidewalks are of wood, and at night we need to take our steps carefully, for only a few dim lights break the darkness. Beyond the walls of the city we see suburbs already springing up.

Three-fourths of the inhabitants are creoles--that is, natives of French and Spanish descent, who speak in the French tongue. We do not understand them any more than if we were in a really foreign city. They seem a handsome, well-knit race. But they are idle and lacking in ambition, and for that reason are being crowded out of business by the active, thrifty American merchants, to whom, we observe, they are not quite friendly.

Such was the New Orleans of 1803, a human oasis in a waste of forest, which made up the greater part of the new territory. There were, to be sure, in this trackless wilderness a few French villages near the mouth of the Missouri River. Traders from the British camps in the north had found their way as far south as these villages, but the great prairies had not been explored, and the Rocky Mountains were yet unknown.

LEWIS AND CLARK'S EXPEDITION

Before the purchase was made Jefferson had planned an expedition to explore this region, and Congress had voted money to carry out his plan.

Two officers of the United States army, Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark, brother of George Rogers Clark, were put in command of the expedition.

They were to ascend the Missouri River to its head and then find the nearest waterway to the Pacific coast. They were directed also to draw maps of the region and to report on the nature of the country and the people, plants, animals, and other matters of interest in the new lands.

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

In May, 1804, the little company of forty-five men left St. Louis and started up the Missouri River, pa.s.sing the scattered settlements of French creoles. After eleven days they reached the home of Daniel Boone, the last settlement they pa.s.sed on the Missouri. Leaving that, they found no more white settlers and very few Indians. But the woods were alive with game, so there was no lack of food.

[Ill.u.s.tration: William Clark.]

Late in October they arrived at a village of Mandan Indians situated at the great bend of the Missouri River, in what is now known as North Dakota. Deciding to winter here, they built huts and a stockade, calling the camp Fort Mandan. The Mandans were used to white men, as the village had been visited often by traders from both north and south.

Although the Indians gave them no trouble, the explorers suffered greatly from cold and hunger, game being scarce and poor in the winter season.

When spring came the party, now numbering thirty-two, again took up the westward journey. All before them was new country. They met few Indians and found themselves in one of the finest hunting-grounds in the world.

Sage-fowl and prairie-fowl, ducks of all sorts, swans, and wild cranes were plentiful, while huge, flapping geese nested in the tops of the cottonwood-trees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Buffalo Hunted by Indians.]

Big game, such as buffalo, elk, antelope, whitetail and blacktail deer, and big-horned sheep, was also abundant. It happened more than once that the party was detained for an hour or more while a great herd of buffalo ploughed their way down the bank of a river in a huge column.

Many of the animals in this region were very tame, for they had not learned to fear men. Yet among them the explorers found some dangerous enemies. One was the grizzly bear, and another the rattlesnake. But the greatest scourges of all were the tiny, buzzing mosquitoes, which beset them in great swarms.

The second autumn was almost upon them when they arrived at the headwaters of the Missouri, and their hardest task was yet to be accomplished. Before them rose the mountains. These, they knew, must be crossed before they could hope to find any waterway to the coast. The boats in which they had come thus far, now being useless, were left behind, and horses were procured from a band of wandering Indians.

Then they set out again on their journey, which presently became most difficult. For nearly a month they painfully made their way through dense forests, over steep mountains, and across raging torrents, whose icy water chilled both man and beast. Sometimes storms of sleet and snow beat pitilessly down upon them, and again they were almost overcome by oppressive heat.

Game was so scarce that the men often went hungry, and were even driven to kill some of their horses for food.

But brighter days were bound to come, and at last they reached a river which flowed toward the west. They called it Lewis, and it proved to be a branch of the Columbia, which led to the sea. With fresh courage they built five canoes, in which the ragged, travel-worn but now triumphant men made their way down-stream. The Indians whom they met were for the most part friendly, welcoming them and providing them with food, though a few tribes were troublesome.

Before the cold of the second winter had set in they had reached the forests on the Pacific coast, and here they stayed until spring, enduring much hunger and cold, but learning many things about the habits of the Indians.