Part 16 (1/2)
In the night of the 5th they were awaked by the man on guard, who called them to witness a peculiarly beautiful appearance of the aurora borealis, or northern lights. Along the sky, towards the north, a large s.p.a.ce was occupied by a light of brilliant white colour, which rose from the horizon, and extended itself to nearly twenty degrees above it.
After glittering for some time, its colours were occasionally overcast and obscured; but again it would burst out with renewed beauty. The uniform colour was pale; but its shapes were various and fantastic. At times the sky was lined with light-coloured streaks, rising perpendicularly from the horizon, and gradually expanding into a body of light, in which could be seen the trace of floating columns, sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating, and shaping into an infinite variety of forms.
Before the middle of November a store-house was completed, in which the contents of the boats were laid up for the winter. On the 13th, ice began to float down the river for the first time; and, on the ensuing day, the ground was covered with snow. In some traps which had been set, twenty beavers were caught. On the 16th the men moved into the huts, although they were not finished. Three days after this the hunters brought in a supply of thirty-two deer, eleven elks, and five buffaloes, all of which were hung up to be smoked, for future subsistence.
The huts were ranged in two rows, each row containing four rooms, fourteen feet square, and seven feet high. The place in which they were erected was called _Fort Mandan_, and was a point of low ground, on the north side of the Missouri, covered with tall and heavy cotton-wood. The computed distance from the mouth of the Missouri was sixteen hundred miles.
In the vicinity of this place were five villages of three distinct nations: _Mandans_, _Ahanaways_, and _Minnetarees_. Not many years ago the Mandans were a very numerous race, occupying, in the whole, eighteen villages; but their numbers had been so much reduced, by the small-pox and by their wars with the Sioux, that they were compelled to emigrate in a body, and unite themselves with the Ricara nation; and they now occupy only two villages, on opposite sides of the Missouri, and about three miles asunder. Each of these contains forty or fifty lodges, built in the same manner as those of the Ricaras. The whole force of the Ahanaways is not, at present, more than fifty men. Their residence is on an elevated plain, near the mouth of the _Knife river_.
On the south side of the same river, and about half a mile distant from this people, is a village of the _Minnetarees_; and there are four other villages of these Indians at a little distance.
The religion of the Mandans consists in the belief that one great Spirit presides over their destinies; but they also believe that various beings, some imaginary and some existing in the form of animals, have the power of interceding for them with the great spirit. To these they pay their devotion. They believe in a future state; and that, after death, they shall go to the original seats of their forefathers, which they suppose to be underground, immediately beneath a spot on the banks of the Missouri, where they formerly had nine villages.
On the 7th of December, the Missouri was frozen over, and the ice was an inch and half in thickness. The cold was so intense, that the air was filled with icy particles resembling a fog; and the snow was several inches deep. Notwithstanding this, one of the commanders, accompanied by some of the men, went out almost every day to hunt. On the tenth, Captain Clarke and his hunters, after having killed nine buffaloes, were obliged to spend a wretched night on the snow: having no other covering than a small blanket and the hides of the buffaloes they had killed. The next day the wind blew from the north; and the ice in the atmosphere was so thick, as to render the weather hazy, and to give the appearance of two suns reflecting each other. On the seventeenth, the mercury in the thermometer fell to seventy-four degrees below the freezing point. The fort was completed on the day before Christmas.
The Indians, inured to the severity of the climate, are able to support the rigours of the season, in a way which Captains Lewis and Clarke had hitherto considered impossible. Many parts of their bodies were exposed; and one of the Indians, in particular, although his dress was very thin, was known to have pa.s.sed the night on the snow, without a fire; and yet he did not suffer the slightest inconvenience.
After having spent nearly five months in this dreary abode, the ice broke up, the boats were repaired and once more got into the river; and other preparations were made for the voyagers to pursue their course towards the sources of the Missouri.
In the afternoon of Sunday, the 7th of April, the arrangements being all completed, the party, consisting of thirty-two persons, once more embarked. They now occupied six small canoes and two large pirogues. The barge was sent down the river, to the United States, with presents of natural curiosities, which had been collected, and with dispatches to the president.
At some distance from Fort Mandan, the land, on each side of the Missouri, after ascending the hills near the water, exhibits the appearance of one fertile and unbroken plain, which extends as far as the eye can reach, without a solitary tree or shrub, except in moist situations, or in the steep declivities of hills. In some parts the plains were on fire; for, every spring, as soon as the ice breaks up in the river, these plains are set on fire by the Indians, for the purpose of driving out and attacking the buffaloes, and other wild animals which inhabit them. Beavers were here very abundant. A herd of antelopes, and the track of a large white bear, were seen in the plain: geese and swans were observed, in great numbers. The musquitoes now began to be very troublesome.
Before the middle of April, the weather became so warm, that, in the day-time, the men worked with no clothes on, except round their waist.
On the twelfth, the voyagers reached the mouth of the _Little Missouri_, where they remained during the day, for the purpose of making celestial observations. This river falls into the Missouri, on its south side, and at the distance of sixteen hundred and ninety-three miles above its confluence with the Mississippi. Its current is strong, and its width a hundred and thirty-four yards; but its greatest depth is only two feet and half. The adjacent country is hilly and irregular; and the soil is, for the most part, a rich dark-coloured loam, intermixed with a small proportion of sand.
On the thirteenth, the voyagers pa.s.sed the remains of forty-three temporary lodges, which were supposed to have belonged to the a.s.siniboin Indians. The waters of many of the creeks were found to be so strongly impregnated with mineral salts, that they were not fit to be drunk. On each bank of the Missouri the country presented the appearance of low plains and meadows; bounded, at the distance of a few miles, by broken hills, which end in high, level, and fertile lands: the quant.i.ty of timber was increasing. In the timbered-grounds, higher up the river, the voyagers observed a great quant.i.ty of old hornets' nests. Many of the hills exhibited a volcanic appearance, furnis.h.i.+ng great quant.i.ties of lava and pumice stone: of the latter, several pieces were observed floating down the river. In all the copses there were remains of a.s.siniboin encampments.
On the twentieth, near an Indian camp, the voyagers observed a scaffold, about seven feet high, on which were two sleds, with their harness; and under the scaffold was the body of a female, carefully wrapped in several dressed buffalo-skins. Near it lay a bag, made of buffalo-skin, and containing some articles of apparel, sc.r.a.pers for dressing hides, some dried roots, plats of sweet gra.s.s, and a small quant.i.ty of tobacco.
These, as well as the body, had probably fallen down by accident, as it is customary to place the dead bodies on scaffolds. At a little distance was the body of a dog, not yet decayed: he had, no doubt, been employed in dragging, in the sled, the body of his mistress, and, according to the Indian usage, had been sacrificed to her.
From the sand-bars in the river, the wind sometimes blew such vast quant.i.ties of sand into the air, as to appear like clouds, and even to conceal the opposite bank from view. These clouds of sand floated, like columns of thick smoke, to the distance of many miles; and the particles were so penetrating, that nothing could be kept free from them.
Near the junction of _Yellow-stone river_ with the Missouri, the country was much more woody than it had been in any other part, since the voyagers had pa.s.sed the Chayenne; and the trees were chiefly of cotton-wood, elm, ash, box, and alder. In the low grounds were rose-bushes, the red-berry, service-berry, red-wood, and other shrubs; and among the bushes on the higher plains, were observed willows, gooseberry-trees, purple currant-trees, and honeysuckles. The sources of Yellow-stone river are said to be in the Rocky Mountains, near those of the Missouri and the Platte; and this river is navigable, in canoes, almost to its head.
Near the junction of the Yellow-stone and Missouri rivers, there is a high plain, which extends three miles in width, and seven or eight miles in length; and which Captain Lewis says might be rendered a very advantageous station for a trading establishment.
Beyond this place, the hills were rough and high, and almost overhung the river. As the voyagers advanced, the low grounds were fertile and extensive, with but little timber, and that cotton-wood. On the 3d of May, they reached the mouth of a river, which; from the unusual number of porcupines that were seen near it, they called _Porcupine river_. For several days after this, they continued their progress without much interruption. In many places the river was, at least, half a mile wide.
During their excursions on the sh.o.r.e, in pursuit of food, they encountered many perils in shooting at bears. Some of these were of vast size and strength: one of them weighed nearly six hundred pounds, and measured eight feet seven inches and a half, from the nose to the extremity of the hind feet.
Beyond the _Muscle-sh.e.l.l river_, which the voyagers reached on the 21st, the sh.o.r.es of the Missouri were abrupt and bold, and composed of a black and yellow clay.
After a navigation of two months, and a progress of more than a thousand miles from their winter camp, the party became considerably embarra.s.sed, at the conflux of two rivers, which were, apparently, of equal magnitude. It was important for them to decide which of the streams in question was the true Missouri; because the river, which it was their object to ascend, was described to be at no great distance from the head waters, running, from the opposite side of the Rocky Mountains, towards the Pacific ocean. Two canoes, with three men, were consequently dispatched, to survey each of these doubtful streams; and parties were sent out by land, to discover, if possible, from the rising grounds, the distant bearings of the lofty ranges of mountains, which were conspicuous in the west; and some of which, though it was now the month of June, were covered with snow. Hence, there was no doubt of their vicinity to the great central ridge of American mountains; but the direction of the rivers just mentioned, could not be distinguished to any considerable distance. Of the two, the one coming from the north, had the brown colour and thick appearance of the Missouri; while the southern river had a rapid current, a pebbly bed, and transparent water, as if it issued from a mountainous country. The resemblance of the former to the river already navigated, led nearly all the privates of the party to consider it as the Missouri; but the clearness of the other stream induced the two captains to the conclusion that it proceeded from those central mountains, which were the grand objects of their search. After a further investigation, they resolved to pursue the course of the latter.
It was, however, requisite to make a deposit of all the heavy baggage, that could possibly be spared, as the increasing shallowness of the water would soon render the navigation much more laborious than it had hitherto been. They accordingly adopted a plan, common among traders who bring merchandise into the country of Indians of doubtful integrity, that of digging a hole in the ground, small at the top, but widened in the descent, somewhat like the shape of a kettle. Choice was made of a dry situation; and the sod, being carefully removed, the excavation was completed, a flooring of wood and hides was laid at the bottom, and the goods were covered with skins: the earth was then thrown into the river, and the sod laid on again with so much care, that not the slightest appearance remained of the surface having been disturbed.
These arrangements being completed, Captain Clarke took charge of the canoes; while Captain Lewis, with four men, proceeded by land, in hopes of soon putting it beyond a doubt that the river which they were now ascending was the Missouri. The decisive proof was to be sought in its falls, which the Indians had described as not remote from the Rocky Mountains, and as of remarkable grandeur. Captain Lewis pa.s.sed along the direction of the river, during two days, and, on the next day, found himself in a position which overlooked a most beautiful plain.
Finding that the river here bore considerably to the south; and fearful of pa.s.sing the falls before he reached the Rocky Mountains, he now changed, his course towards the south, and, leaving these hills to the right, proceeded across the plain. In this direction he had gone about two miles, when his ears were saluted with the agreeable sound of a fall of water; and, as he advanced, a spray, which seemed to be driven by the high south-west wind, arose above the plain, like a column of smoke, and vanished in an instant. Towards this point he directed his steps; and the noise, increasing as he approached, soon became too tremendous to be mistaken for any thing but the _Great Falls of the Missouri_. Having travelled seven miles after he first heard the sound, he at length reached the falls.