`I am
much pleased, I am much rejoiced.' The whole body of warriors
now came forward, and our
Men received the caresses, and no
small share of the grease and paint, of their new friends.
After this fraternal embrace, of which the motive was much
more agreeable than the manner, Captain Lewis lighted a pipe,
and offered it to the Indians, who had now seated themselves
in a circle around the party. But, before they would receive
this mark of friendship, they pulled off their moccasins:
a custom, as we afterward learned, which indicates the sacred
sincerity of their professions when they smoke with a stranger,
and which imprecates on themselves the misery of going
barefoot forever if they prove faithless to their words -
a penalty by no means light for those who rove over the thorny
plains of this country. . . .
"After smoking a few pipes, some trifling presents were
distributed among them, with which they seemed very much pleased,
particularly with the blue beads and the vermilion.
Captain Lewis then stated to the chief that the object
of his visit was friendly, and should be explained as soon
as he reached their camp; and that, as the sun was oppressive,
and no water near, he wished to go there as soon as possible.
They now put on their moccasins, and their chief, whose name
was Cameahwait, made a short speech to the warriors.
Captain Lewis then gave him the flag, which he informed him
was among white men the emblem of peace; and, now that he had
received it, was to be in future the bond of union between them.
The chief then moved on; our party followed him; and the rest
of the warriors, in a squadron, brought up the rear."
Arriving at the village, the ceremony of smoking the pipe of peace
was solemnly observed; and the women and children of the tribe were
permitted to gaze with wonder on the first white men they had ever seen.
The Indians were not much better provided with food than were their
half-famished visitors. But some cakes made of service-berries and
choke-berries dried in the sun were presented to the white men "on which,"
says Captain Lewis, "we made a hearty meal." Later in the day, however,
an Indian invited Captain Lewis into his wigwam and treated him to a
small morsel of boiled antelope and a piece of fresh salmon roasted.
This was the first salmon he had seen, and the captain was now assured
that he was on the headwaters of the Columbia. This stream was what is now
known as the Lemhi River. The water was clear and limpid, flowing down
a bed of gravel; its general direction was a little north of west.
The journal says: -
"The chief informed him that this stream discharged, at the distance
of half a day's march, into another [Salmon River] of twice its size,
coming from the southwest; but added, on further inquiry, that there
was scarcely more timber below the junction of those rivers than in
this neighborhood, and that the river was rocky, rapid, and so closely
confined between high mountains that it was impossible to pass down it
either by land or water to the great lake [Pacific Ocean], where,
as he had understood, the white men lived.
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