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.
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