They Were In A Region
Of Wood In Plenty, And For The First Time Since Leaving The
Long Narrows, Or
Dalles, they had as much fuel as they needed.
On the Touchet, accordingly, they camped for the sake of having
A comfortable night; the nights were cold, and a good fire
by which to sleep was an attraction not easily resisted.
The journal, April 30, has this entry: -
"We were soon supplied by Drewyer with a beaver and an otter,
of which we took only a part of the beaver, and gave the rest
to the Indians. The otter is a favorite food, though much inferior,
at least in our estimation, to the dog, which they will not eat.
The horse is seldom eaten, and never except when absolute necessity
compels them, as the only alternative to dying of hunger.
This fastidiousness does not, however, seem to proceed so much from
any dislike to the food, as from attachment to the animal itself;
for many of them eat very heartily of the horse-beef which
we give them."
On the first day of May, having travelled forty miles from
their camp near the mouth of the Walla Walla, they camped
between two points at which are now situated the two towns
of Prescott, on the south, and Waitesburg, on the north.
Their journal says: -
"We had scarcely encamped when three young men came up from the Wollawollah
village, with a steel-trap which had inadvertently been left behind,
and which they had come a whole day's journey in order to restore.
This act of integrity was the more pleasing, because, though very rare
among Indians, it corresponded perfectly with the general behavior
of the Wollawollahs, among whom we had lost carelessly several knives,
which were always returned as soon as found. We may, indeed, justly affirm,
that of all the Indians whom we had met since leaving the United States,
the Wollawollahs were the most hospitable, honest, and sincere."
Chapter XXI
Overland east of the Columbia
It was now early in May, and the expedition, travelling eastward
along Touchet Creek, were in the country of their friends,
the Chopunnish. On the third, they were agreeably surprised
to meet Weahkootnut, whom they had named Bighorn from the fact
that be wore a born of that animal suspended from his left arm.
This man was the first chief of a large band of Chopunnish,
and when the expedition passed that way, on their path to the Pacific,
the last autumn, he was very obliging and useful to them, guiding them
down the Snake, or Lewis River. He had now heard that the white men
were on their return, and he had come over across the hills to meet them.
As we may suppose, the meeting was very cordial, and Weahkootnut
turned back with his white friends and accompanied them to the mouth
of the Kooskooskee, a stream of which our readers have heard before;
it is now known as the Clearwater.
Captain Lewis told Weahkootnut that his people were hungry,
their slender stock of provisions being about exhausted.
The chief told them that they would soon come to a Chopunnish
house where they could get food. But the journal has this entry: -
"We found the house which Weahkootnut had mentioned, where we
halted for breakfast. It contained six families, so miserably
poor that all we could obtain from them were two lean dogs and a
few large cakes of half-cured bread, made of a root resembling
the sweet potato, of all which we contrived to form a kind of soup.
The soil of the plain is good, but it has no timber.
The range of southwest mountains is about fifteen miles above us,
but continues to lower, and is still covered with snow to its base.
After giving passage to Lewis' [Snake] River, near their
northeastern extremity, they terminate in a high level plain
between that river and the Kooskooskee. The salmon not having
yet called them to the rivers, the greater part of the Chopunnish
are now dispersed in villages through this plain, for the purpose
of collecting quamash and cows, which here grow in great abundance,
the soil being extremely fertile, in many places covered
with long-leaved pine, larch, and balsam-fir, which contribute
to render it less thirsty than the open, unsheltered plains."
By the word "cows," in this sentence, we must understand that
the story-teller meant cowas, a root eaten by the Indians and white
explorers in that distant region. It is a knobbed, irregular root,
and when cooked resembles the ginseng. At this place the party
met some of the Indians whom Captain Clark had treated for
slight diseases, when they passed that way, the previous autumn.
They bad sounded the praises of the white men and their medicine,
and others were now waiting to be treated in the same manner.
The Indians were glad to pay for their treatment, and the white
men were not sorry to find this easy method of adding
to their stock of food, which was very scanty at this time.
The journal sagely adds, "We cautiously abstain from giving them
any but harmless medicines; and as we cannot possibly do harm,
our prescriptions, though unsanctioned by the faculty, may be useful,
and are entitled to some remuneration." Very famous and
accomplished doctors might say the same thing of their practice.
But the explorers did not meet with pleasant acquaintances only;
in the very next entry is recorded this disagreeable incident:
"Four miles beyond this house we came to another large one, containing
ten families, where we halted and made our dinner on two dogs and a small
quantity of roots, which we did not procure without much difficulty.
Whilst we were eating, an Indian standing by, looking with great
derision at our eating dogs, threw a poor half-starved puppy almost
into Captain Lewis' plate, laughing heartily at the humor of it.
Captain Lewis took up the animal and flung it with great force into
the fellow's face; and seizing his tomahawk, threatened to cut him
down if he dared to repeat such insolence.
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