From Fort Mandan to the Yellowstone Up to this time, the expedition had passed through regions from which vague reports had been brought by the few white men who, as hunters and trappers in pursuit of fur-bearing game, had dared to venture into these trackless wildernesses.
Now they were to launch out into the mysterious unknown, from which absolutely no tidings had ever been brought by white men.
The dim reports of Indians who had hunted through some parts of the region were unreliable, and, as they afterwards proved, were often as absurdly false as if they had been fairy tales.
Here, too, they parted from some of their comrades who were to return to "the United States," as the explorers fondly termed their native country, although the strange lands through which they were voyaging were now a part of the American Republic. The despatches sent to Washington by these men contained the first official report from Lewis and Clark since their departure from St. Louis, May 16, 1803; and they were the last word from the explorers until their return in September, 1806. During all that long interval, the adventurers were not heard of in the States. No wonder that croakers declared that the little party had been cut off to perish miserably in the pathless woods that cover the heart of the continent.
But they set out on the long journey with light hearts.
In his journal, whose spelling and punctuation are not always models for the faithful imitation of school-boys, Captain Lewis set down this observation:--"Our vessels consisted of six small canoes, and two large perogues.
This little fleet altho' not quite so rispectable as those of Columbus or Capt. Cook, were still viewed by us with as much pleasure as those deservedly famed adventurers ever beheld theirs; and I dare say with quite as much anxiety for their safety and preservation. we were now about to penetrate a country at least two thousand miles in width, on which the foot of civilized man had never trodden; the good or evil it had in store for us was for experiment yet to determine, and these little vessells contained every article by which we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves. however as the state of mind in which we are, generally gives the colouring to events, when the immagination is suffered to wander into futurity, the picture which now presented itself to me was a most pleasing one. entertaing as I do the most confident hope of succeeding in a voyage which had formed a darling project of mine for the last ten years, I could but esteem this moment of our departure as among the most happy of my life."
The barge sent down the river to St. Louis was in command of Corporal Wharfington; and with him were six private soldiers, two French voyageurs, Joseph Gravelines (pilot and interpreter), and Brave Raven, a Ricara (or Arikara) chief who was to be escorted to Washington to visit the President. The party was also intrusted with sundry gifts for the President, among them being natural history specimens, living and dead, and a number of Indian articles which would be objects of curiosity in Washington.
The long voyage of the main party began on the 8th of April, 1805, early passing the mouth of the Big Knife River, one of the five considerable streams that fall into the Missouri from the westward in this region; the other streams are the Owl, the Grand, the Cannonball, and the Heart. The large town of Stanton, Mercer County, North Dakota, is now situated at the mouth of the Big Knife. The passage of the party up the river was slow, owing to unfavorable winds; and they observed along the banks many signs of early convulsions of nature.
The earth of the bluffs was streaked with layers of coal, or carbonized wood, and large quantities of lava and pumice-stone were strewn around, showing traces of ancient volcanic action.
The journal of April 9 says:--"A great number of brants [snow-geese] pass up the river; some of them are perfectly white, except the large feathers of the first joint of the wing, which are black, though in every other characteristic they resemble common gray brant.
We also saw but could not procure an animal [gopher] that burrows in the ground, and is similar in every respect to the burrowing-squirrel, except that it is only one-third of its size.
This may be the animal whose works we have often seen in the plains and prairies; they resemble the labors of the salamander in the sand-hills of South Carolina and Georgia, and like him the animals rarely come above ground; they consist of a little hillock of ten or twelve pounds of loose ground, which would seem to have been reversed from a pot, though no aperture is seen through which it could have been thrown.
On removing gently the earth, you discover that the soil has been broken in a circle of about an inch and a half diameter, where the ground is looser, though still no opening is perceptible.
When we stopped for dinner the squaw [Sacajawea] went out, and after penetrating with a sharp stick the holes of the mice [gophers], near some drift-wood, brought to us a quantity of wild artichokes, which the mice collect and hoard in large numbers.
The root is white, of an ovate form, from one to three inches long, and generally of the size of a man's finger, and two, four, and sometimes six roots are attached to a single stalk.
Its flavor as well as the stalk which issues from it resemble those of the Jerusalem artichoke, except that the latter is much larger."
The weather rapidly grew so warm, although this was early in April, that the men worked half-naked during the day; and they were very much annoyed by clouds of mosquitoes.
They found that the hillsides and even the banks of the rivers and sand-bars were covered with "a white substance, which appears in considerable quantities on the surface of the earth, and tastes like a mixture of common salt with Glauber's salts."