But In Those Primitive Times,
And Among Peoples Entirely Ignorant Of The White Man's
Riches And Resources, Coats Richly Laced
With gilt braid,
red trousers, medals, flags, knives, colored handkerchiefs,
paints, small looking-glasses, beads and tomahawks were believed
to
Be so attractive to the simple-minded red man that he would
gladly do much and give much of his own to win such prizes.
Of these fine things there were fourteen large bales and one box.
The stores of the expedition were clothing, working tools,
fire-arms, food supplies, powder, ball, lead for bullets,
and flints for the guns then in use, the old-fashioned
flint-lock rifle and musket being still in vogue in our country;
for all of this was at the beginning of the present century.
As the party was to begin their long journey by ascending the
Missouri River, their means of travel were provided in three boats.
The largest, a keel-boat, fifty-five feet long and drawing
three feet of water, carried a big square sail and twenty-two
seats for oarsmen. On board this craft was a small swivel gun.
The other two boats were of that variety of open craft known
as pirogue, a craft shaped like a flat-iron, square-sterned,
flat-bottomed, roomy, of light draft, and usually provided with four
oars and a square sail which could be used when the wind was aft,
and which also served as a tent, or night shelter, on shore.
Two horses, for hunting or other occasional service, were led
along the banks of the river.
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