Captain Lewis having found a better camping-place near a sandy beach, they started to move their luggage thither; but before they could get under way, a high wind from the southwest sprung up and they were forced to remain. But the sun came out and they were enabled to dry their stuff, much of which had been spoiled by the rain which had prevailed for the past ten days. Their fish also was no longer fit to eat, and they were indeed in poor case. Captain Lewis was out on a prospecting trip, and the party set out and found a beach through which a pleasant brook flowed to the river, making a very good camping-place. At the mouth of this stream was an ancient Chinook village, which, says the journal, "has at present no inhabitants but fleas." The adventurers were compelled to steer wide of all old Indian villages, they were so infested with fleas. At times, so great was the pest, the men were forced to take off all their clothing and soak themselves and their garments in the river before they could be rid of the insects. The site of their new camp was at the southeast end of Baker's Bay, sometimes called Haley's Bay, a mile above a very high point of rocks. On arriving at this place, the voyagers met with an unpleasant experience of which the journal gives this account:--

"Here we met Shannon, who had been sent back to meet us by Captain Lewis. The day Shannon left us in the canoe, he and Willard proceeded till they met a party of twenty Indians, who, having never heard of us, did not know where they [our men] came from; they, however, behaved with so much civility, and seemed so anxious that the men should go with them toward the sea, that their suspicions were excited, and they declined going on. The Indians, however, would not leave them; the men being confirmed in their suspicions, and fearful that if they went into the woods to sleep they would be cut to pieces in the night, thought it best to pass the night in the midst of the Indians. They therefore made a fire, and after talking with them to a late hour, laid down with their rifles under their heads. As they awoke that morning they found that the Indians had stolen and concealed their guns. Having demanded them in vain, Shannon seized a club, and was about assaulting one of the Indians, whom he suspected as a thief, when another Indian began to load a fowling-piece with the intention of shooting him. He therefore stopped, and explained by signs that if they did not give up the guns a large party would come down the river before the sun rose to such a height, and put every one of them to death. Fortunately, Captain Lewis and his party appeared at this time. The terrified Indians immediately brought the guns, and five of them came on with Shannon. To these men we declared that if ever any one of their nation stole anything from us, he should be instantly shot. They reside to the north of this place, and speak a language different from that of the people higher up the river.

"It was now apparent that the sea was at all times too rough for us to proceed further down the bay by water. We therefore landed, and having chosen the best spot we could select, made our camp of boards from the old [Chinook] village. We were now situated comfortably, and being visited by four Wahkiacums with wappatoo-roots, were enabled to make an agreeable addition to our food."

On the seventeenth Captain Lewis with a small party of his men coasted the bay as far out as Cape Disappointment and some distance to the north along the seacoast. Game was now plenty, and the camp was supplied with ducks, geese, and venison. Bad weather again set in. The journal under date of November 22 says:--

"It rained during the whole night, and about daylight a tremendous gale of wind rose from the S.S.E., and continued through the day with great violence. The sea ran so high that the water came into our camp, which the rain prevents us from leaving. We purchased from the old squaw, for armbands and rings, a few wappatoo-roots, on which we subsisted. They are nearly equal in flavor to the Irish potato, and afford a very good substitute for bread. The bad weather drove several Indians to our camp, but they were still under the terrors of the threat which we made on first seeing them, and behaved with the greatest decency.

"The rain continued through the night, November 23, and the morning was calm and cloudy. The hunters were sent out, and killed three deer, four brant, and three ducks. Towards evening seven Clatsops came over in a canoe, with two skins of the sea-otter. To this article they attached an extravagant value; and their demands for it were so high, that we were fearful it would too much reduce our small stock of merchandise, on which we had to depend for subsistence on our return, to venture on purchasing it. To ascertain, however, their ideas as to the value of different objects, we offered for one of these skins a watch, a handkerchief, an American dollar, and a bunch of red beads; but neither the curious mechanism of the watch, nor even the red beads, could tempt the owner: he refused the offer, but asked for tiacomoshack, or chief beads, the most common sort of coarse blue-colored beads, the article beyond all price in their estimation. Of these blue beads we had but few, and therefore reserved them for more necessitous circumstances."

The officers of the expedition had hoped and expected to find here some of the trading ships that were occasionally sent along the coast to barter with the natives; but none were to be found. They were soon to prepare for winter-quarters, and they still hoped that a trader might appear in the spring before they set out on their homeward journey across the continent. Very much they needed trinkets to deal with the natives in exchange for, the needful articles of food on the route. But (we may as well say here) no such relief ever appeared. It is strange that President Jefferson, in the midst of his very minute orders and preparations for the benefit of the explorers, did not think of sending a relief ship to meet the party at the mouth of the Columbia. They would have been saved a world of care, worry, and discomfort. But at that time the European nations who held possessions on the Pacific coast were very suspicious of the Americans, and possibly President Jefferson did not like to risk rousing their animosity.

The rain that now deluged the unhappy campers was so incessant that they might well have thought that people should be web-footed to live in such a watery region. In these later days, Oregon is sometimes known as "The Web-foot State." Captain Clark, in his diary, November 28, makes this entry: "O! how disagreeable is our situation dureing this dreadfull weather!" The gallant captain's spelling was sometimes queer. Under that date he adds:--

"We remained during the day in a situation the most cheerless and uncomfortable. On this little neck of land we are exposed, with a miserable covering which does not deserve the name of a shelter, to the violence of the winds; all our bedding and stores, as well as our bodies, are completely wet; our clothes are rotting with constant exposure, and we have no food except the dried fish brought from the falls, to which we are again reduced. The hunters all returned hungry and drenched with rain, having seen neither deer nor elk, and the swan and brant were too shy to be approached. At noon the wind shifted to the northwest, and blew with such tremendous fury that many trees were blown down near us. This gale lasted with short intervals during the whole night."

Of course, in the midst of such violent storms, it was impossible to get game, and the men were obliged to resort once more to a diet of dried fish, This food caused much sickness in the camp, and it became imperatively necessary that efforts should again be made to find game. On the second of December, to their great joy an elk was killed, and next day they had a feast. The journal says;

"The wind was from the east and the morning fair; but, as if one whole day of fine weather were not permitted, toward night it began to rain. Even this transient glimpse of sunshine revived the spirits of the party, who were still more pleased when the elk killed yesterday was brought into camp. This was the first elk we had killed on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, and condemned as we have been to the dried fish, it formed a most nourishing food. After eating the marrow of the shank-bones, the squaw chopped them fine, and by boiling extracted a pint of grease, superior to the tallow itself of the animal. A canoe of eight Indians, who were carrying down wappatoo-roots to trade with the Clatsops, stopped at our camp; we bought a few roots for small fish-hooks, and they then left us. Accustomed as we were to the sight, we could not but view with admiration the wonderful dexterity with which they guide their canoes over the most boisterous seas; for though the waves were so high that before they had gone half a mile the canoe was several times out of sight, they proceeded with the greatest calmness and security. Two of the hunters who set out yesterday had lost their way, and did not return till this evening. They had seen in their ramble great signs of elk and had killed six, which they had butchered and left at a great distance. A party was sent in the morning."

On the third of December Captain Clark carved on the trunk of a great pine tree this inscription:--

"WM. CLARK DECEMBER 3D 1805 BY LAND FROM THE U. STATES IN 1804 & 5."

A few days later, Captain Lewis took with him a small party and set out to find a suitable spot on which to build their winter camp. He did not return as soon as he was expected, and considerable uneasiness was felt in camp on that account. But he came in safely. He brought good news; they had discovered a river on the south side of the Columbia, not far from their present encampment, where there were an abundance of elk and a favorable place for a winter camp. Bad weather detained them until the seventh of December, when a favorable change enabled them to proceed. They made their way slowly and very cautiously down-stream, the tide being against them. The narrative proceeds:--

"We at length turned a point, and found ourselves in a deep bay: here we landed for breakfast, and were joined by the party sent out three days ago to look for the six elk, killed by the Lewis party. They had lost their way for a day and a half, and when they at last reached the place, found the elk so much spoiled that they brought away nothing but the skins of four of them. After breakfast we coasted round the bay, which is about four miles across, and receives, besides several small creeks, two rivers, called by the Indians, the one Kilhowanakel, the other Netul. We named it Meriwether's Bay, from the Christian name of Captain Lewis, who was, no doubt, the first white man who had surveyed it. The wind was high from the northeast, and in the middle of the day it rained for two hours, and then cleared off. On reaching the south side of the bay we ascended the Netul three miles, to the first point of high land on its western bank, and formed our camp in a thick grove of lofty pines, about two hundred yards from the water, and thirty feet above the level of the high tides."

Chapter XVIII

Camping by the Pacific

Next in importance to the building of a winter camp was the fixing of a place where salt could be made. Salt is absolutely necessary for the comfort of man, and the supply brought out from the United States by the explorers was now nearly all gone. They were provided with kettles in which sea-water could be boiled down and salt be made. It would be needful to go to work at once, for the process of salt-making by boiling in ordinary kettles is slow and tedious; not only must enough for present uses be found, but a supply to last the party home again was necessary. Accordingly, on the eighth of December the journal has this entry to show what was to be done:--

"In order, therefore, to find a place for making salt, and to examine the country further, Captain Clark set out with five men, and pursuing a course S. 60'0 W., over a dividing ridge through thick pine timber, much of which bad fallen, passed the beads of two small brooks. In the neighborhood of these the land was swampy and overflowed, and they waded knee-deep till they came to an open ridgy prairie, covered with the plant known on our frontier by the name of sacacommis [bearberry]. Here is a creek about sixty yards wide and running toward Point Adams; they passed it on a small raft. At this place they discovered a large herd of elk, and after pursuing them for three miles over bad swamps and small ponds, killed one of them. The agility with which the elk crossed the swamps and bogs seems almost incredible; as we followed their track the ground for a whole acre would shake at our tread and sometimes we sunk to our hips without finding any bottom. Over the surface of these bogs is a species of moss, among which are great numbers of cranberries; and occasionally there rise from the swamp small steep knobs of earth, thickly covered with pine and laurel. On one of these we halted at night, but it was scarcely large enough to suffer us to lie clear of the water, and had very little dry wood. We succeeded, however, in collecting enough to make a fire; and having stretched the elk-skin to keep off the rain, which still continued, slept till morning."

Next day the party were met by three Indians who had been fishing for salmon, of which they had a goodly supply, and were now on their way home to their village on the seacoast. They, invited Captain Clark and his men to accompany them; and the white men accepted the invitation. These were Clatsops. Their village consisted of twelve families living in houses of split pine boards, the lower half of the house being underground. By a small ladder in the middle of the house-front, the visitors reached the floor, which was about four feet below the surface. Two fires were burning in the middle of the room upon the earthen floor. The beds were ranged around the room next to the wall, with spaces beneath them for bags, baskets, and household articles.

Captain Clark was received with much attention, clean mats were spread for him, and a repast of fish, roots, and berries was set before him. He noticed that the Clatsops were well dressed and clean, and that they frequently washed their faces and hands, a ceremony, he remarked, that is by no means frequent among other Indians. A high wind now prevailed, and as the evening was stormy, Captain Clark resolved to stay all night with his hospitable Clatsops. The narrative proceeds:--

"The men of the village now collected and began to gamble. The most common game was one in which one of the company was banker, and played against all the rest. He had a piece of bone, about the size of a large bean, and having agreed with any individual as to the value of the stake, would pass the bone from one hand to the other with great dexterity, singing at the same time to divert the attention of his adversary; then holding it in his hands, his antagonist was challenged to guess in which of them the bone was, and lost or won as he pointed to the right or wrong hand. To this game of hazard they abandoned themselves with great ardor; sometimes everything they possess is sacrificed to it; and this evening several of the Indians lost all the beads which they had with them. This lasted for three hours; when, Captain Clark appearing disposed to sleep, the man who had been most attentive, and whose name was Cuskalah, spread two new mats near the fire, ordered his wife to retire to her own bed, and the rest of the company dispersed at the same time. Captain Clark then lay down, but the violence with which the fleas attacked him did not leave his rest unbroken."

Next morning, Captain Clark walked along the seashore, and he observed that the Indians were walking up and down, examining the shore and the margin of a creek that emptied here. The narrative says:--

"He was at a loss to understand their object till one of them came to him, and explained that they were in search of any fish which might have been thrown on shore and left by the tide, adding in English, `sturgeon is very good.' There is, indeed, every reason to believe that these Clatsops depend for their subsistence, during the winter, chiefly on the fish thus casually thrown on the coast. After amusing himself for some time on the beach, he returned towards the village, and shot on his way two brant. As he came near the village, one of the Indians asked him to shoot a duck about thirty steps distant: he did so, and, having accidentally shot off its head, the bird was brought to the village, when all the Indians came round in astonishment. They examined the duck, the musket, and the very small bullets, which were a hundred to the pound, and then exclaimed, Clouch musque, waket, commatax musquet: Good musket; do not understand this kind of musket. They now placed before him their best roots, fish, and syrup, after which he attempted to purchase a sea-otter skin with some red beads which he happened to have about him; but they declined trading, as they valued none except blue or white beads. He therefore bought nothing but a little berry-bread and a few roots, in exchange for fish-hooks, and then set out to return by the same route he had come. He was accompanied by Cuskalah and his brother as far as the third creek, and then proceeded to the camp through a heavy rain. The whole party had been occupied during his absence in cutting down trees to make huts, and in hunting."

This was the occupation of all hands for several days, notwithstanding the discomfort of the continual downpour. Many of the men were ill from the effects of sleeping and living so constantly in water. Under date of December 12, the journal has this entry:--

"We continued to work in the rain at our houses. In the evening there arrived two canoes of Clatsops, among whom was a principal chief, called Comowol. We gave him a medal and treated his companions with great attention; after which we began to bargain for a small sea-otter skin, some wappatoo-roots, and another species of root called shanataque. We readily perceived that they were close dealers, stickled much for trifles, and never closed the bargain until they thought they had the advantage. The wappatoo is dear, as they themselves are obliged to give a high price for it to the Indians above. Blue beads are the articles most in request; the white occupy the next place in their estimation; but they do not value much those of any other color. We succeeded at last in purchasing their whole cargo for a few fish-hooks and a small sack of Indian tobacco, which we had received from the Shoshonees."

The winter camp was made up of seven huts, and, although it was not so carefully fortified as was the fort in the Mandan country (during the previous winter), it was so arranged that intruders could be kept out when necessary. For the roofs of these shelters they were provided with "shakes" split out from a species of pine which they called "balsam pine," and which gave them boards, or puncheons, or shakes, ten feet long and two feet wide, and not more than an inch and a half thick. By the sixteenth of December their meat-house was finished, and their meat, so much of which had been spoiled for lack of proper care, was cut up in small pieces and hung under cover. They had been told by the Indians that very little snow ever fell in that region, and the weather, although very, very wet, was mild and usually free from frost. They did have severe hailstorms and a few flurries of snow in December but the rain was a continual cause of discomfort. Of the trading habits of the Clatsops the journal has this to say:--

"Three Indians came in a canoe with mats, roots, and the berries of the sacacommis. These people proceed with a dexterity and finesse in their bargains which, if they have not learned it from their foreign visitors, may show how nearly allied is the cunning of savages to the little arts of traffic. They begin by asking double or treble the value of what they have to sell, and lower their demand in proportion to the greater or less degree of ardor or knowledge of the purchaser, who, with all his management, is not able to procure the article for less than its real value, which the Indians perfectly understand. Our chief medium of trade consists of blue and white beads, files,-- with which they sharpen their tools,--fish-hooks, and tobacco; but of all these articles blue beads and tobacco are the most esteemed."

But, although their surroundings were not of a sort to make one very jolly, when Christmas came they observed the day as well as they could. Here is what the journal says of the holiday:--

"We were awaked at daylight by a discharge of firearms, which was followed by a song from the men, as a compliment to us on the return of Christmas, which we have always been accustomed to observe as a day of rejoicing. After breakfast we divided our remaining stock of tobacco, which amounted to twelve carrots [hands], into two parts; one of which we distributed among such of the party as make use of it, making a present of a handkerchief to the others. The remainder of the day was passed in good spirits, though there was nothing in our situation to excite much gayety. The rain confined us to the house, and our only luxuries in honor of the season were some poor elk, so much spoiled that we ate it through sheer necessity, a few roots, and some spoiled pounded fish.

"The next day brought a continuation of rain, accompanied with thunder, and a high wind from the southeast. We were therefore obliged to still remain in our huts, and endeavored to dry our wet articles before the fire. The fleas, which annoyed us near the portage of the Great Falls, have taken such possession of our clothes that we are obliged to have a regular search every day through our blankets as a necessary preliminary to sleeping at night. These animals, indeed, are so numerous that they are almost a calamity to the Indians of this country. When they have once obtained the mastery of any house it is impossible to expel them, and the Indians have frequently different houses, to which they resort occasionally when the fleas have rendered their permanent residence intolerable; yet, in spite of these precautions, every Indian is constantly attended by multitudes of them, and no one comes into our house without leaving behind him swarms of these tormenting insects."

Although the condition of the exploring party was low, the men did not require very much to put them in good spirits. The important and happy event of finishing their fort and the noting of good weather are thus set forth in the journal under date of December 30:--

"Toward evening the hunters brought in four elk [which Drewyer had killed], and after a long course of abstinence and miserable diet, we had a most sumptuous supper of elk's tongues and marrow. Besides this agreeable repast, the state of the weather was quite exhilarating. It had rained during the night, but in the morning, though the high wind continued, we enjoyed the fairest and most pleasant weather since our arrival; the sun having shone at intervals, and there being only three showers in the course of the day. By sunset we had completed the fortification, and now announced to the Indians that every day at that hour the gates would be closed, and they must leave the fort and not enter it till sunrise. The Wahkiacums who remained with us, and who were very forward in their deportment, complied very reluctantly with this order; but, being excluded from our houses, formed a camp near us. . . . . . . . . .

"January 1, 1806. We were awaked at an early hour by the discharge of a volley of small arms, to salute the new year. This was the only mode of commemorating the day which our situation permitted; for, though we had reason to be gayer than we were at Christmas, our only dainties were boiled elk and wappatoo, enlivened by draughts of pure water. We were visited by a few Clatsops, who came by water, bringing roots and berries for sale. Among this nation we observed a man about twenty-five years old, of a much lighter complexion than the Indians generally: his face was even freckled, and his hair long, and of a colour inclining to red. He was in habits and manners perfectly Indian; but, though he did not speak a word of English, he seemed to understand more than the others of his party; and, as we could obtain no account of his origin, we concluded that one of his parents, at least, must have been white."

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