Читать книгу Makers of American History: The Lewis and Clark Exploring Expedition - Graeme Mercer Adam - Страница 7

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After passing the entrance of the Yellowstone, the Expedition proceeded onward, up the now muddy Missouri, which from its many rapids and other obstructions in the stream the party found the passage toilsome and fatiguing. Here, in many parts of the river, the boats, they found, could not be propelled with the oars, and hence they were necessitated to draw them with tow-lines from the banks. The difficulties of navigation were, however, in much measure relieved by the sport found in the region, the game here, in the neighborhood of the foot-hills of the Rockies which they had now reached, being increasingly plentiful and at times excitingly risky to kill. This was especially the case in encounters with bruin, one of which is described in the Journal at the close of April (1805). Here is the record of the previous day’s sport:

“Captain Lewis, who was on shore with one hunter, met, about eight o’clock, two white bears. Of the strength and ferocity of these animals the Indians had given us dreadful accounts. They never attack the bear but in parties of six or eight persons, and even then are often defeated with a loss of one or more of their party. Having no weapons but bows and arrows, and the bad guns with which the traders supply them, they are obliged to approach very near to the bear; as no wound except through the head or heart is mortal, they frequently fall a sacrifice if they miss their aim. He rather attacks than avoids a man, and such is the terror which he has inspired, that the Indians who go in quest of him paint themselves, and perform all the superstitious rites customary when they make war on a neighboring nation. Hitherto, those bears we had seen did not appear desirous of encountering us; but although to a skilful rifleman the danger is much diminished, yet the white bear is still a terrible animal. On approaching these two, both Captain Lewis and the hunter fired, and each wounded a bear. One of them made his escape; the other turned upon Lewis and pursued him seventy or eighty yards, but being badly wounded the bear could not run so fast as to prevent him from reloading his piece, which he again aimed at him, and a third shot from the hunter brought him to the ground. He was a male, not quite full grown, and weighed about three hundred pounds. The legs are somewhat longer than those of the black bear, and the talons and tusks are much larger and longer. Its color is a yellowish-brown; the eyes are small, black, and piercing; the front of the forelegs near the feet is usually black, and the fur is finer, thicker, and deeper than that of the black bear. Add to which, it is a more furious animal, and very remarkable for the wounds which it will bear without dying.”

The other game met with in the region included elk, deer, buffalo, beaver, porcupine, and antelope, together with ducks, geese, and some swans. Wolves were also met with, of the variety now known as the coyote, a fleet, sly, but in the main cowardly, animal. Here is the Journal’s observations on them:

“The ears are large, erect, and pointed; the head is long and also pointed, like that of the fox; the tail long and bushy; the hair and fur are of a pale reddish-brown color, though much coarser than that of the fox; the eye is of a deep sea-green color, small and piercing; the talons are rather longer than those of the wolf of the Atlantic States, which animal, as far as we can perceive, is not to be found on this side of the Platte. These wolves usually associate in bands of ten or twelve, and are rarely, if ever, seen alone, not being able singly to attack a deer or antelope. They live and rear their young in burrows, which they fix near some pass or spot much frequented by game, and sally out in a body against any animal which they think they can overpower; but on the slightest alarm retreat to their burrows, making a noise exactly like that of a small dog. ... A second species is lower, shorter in the legs, and thicker than the Atlantic wolf; the color, which is not affected by the seasons, is of every variety of shade, from a gray or blackish-brown to a cream-colored white. They do not burrow, nor do they bark, but howl; they frequent the woods and plains, and skulk along the skirts of the buffalo herds, in order to attack the weary or wounded.”

By this time, the explorers, being now well within the Montana country, their interest was turned towards the great elevations of the Rocky Mountains, whose crests Captain Lewis had seen from a high hill he ascended, and which then lay afar off on the western horizon. By about the middle of June, the Expedition reached the Great Falls of the Missouri, whose roar had been heard for some time before the party confronted the mighty spectacle. The river here “descends the mountain side about three hundred and sixty feet in the course of sixteen miles. There are four distinct cataracts,” states an historical authority (Prof. H. W. Elson, in his “Side Lights on American History”), “the largest being a leap of eighty-seven feet over a perpendicular wall. Between the cataracts are rapids where the water leaps and rages as if possessed by evil spirits. Far above the mad, seething river rises a cloud of rainbow-tinted spray, which floats peacefully away over the forest until dissolved into air by the sun. On reaching the Great Falls the party were obliged to carry their canoes for eighteen miles, when they again made use of the river. After a journey of one hundred and forty-one miles from the Falls they reach a place where the Missouri breaks through great mountain walls many hundred feet in height, and they call it the ‘Gates of the Rocky Mountains.’ They are still four hundred miles from the source of the river, and their journey continues.”

Before coming to the Great Falls of the Missouri, the Expedition had passed the Porcupine, Milk, and Dry River streams, the two first named falling into the Missouri from the north, and the latter from the south. Beyond these rivers, they came to one which the explorers named the Marie, and which for a time they mistook for the main river of the Missouri. They finally took the direct course of the stream, stopping for a time here to cache such deep-draught boats as they could not now use or handily portage, and such other articles as they could dispense with on the remainder of the journey. Of the great spectacle of the Falls of the Missouri, we naturally get a glowing description in the pages of the Lewis and Clark “Journal.” This stupendous object, which delighted all by its sublimity, is spoken of by the explorers as one which “since the creation had been lavishing its magnificence upon the desert, unknown to civilization.”

“The river immediately at the cascades,” observes the writer, “is three hundred yards wide, and is pressed in by a perpendicular cliff on the left, which rises to about one hundred feet and extends up the stream for a mile; on the right the bluff is also perpendicular for three hundred yards above the Falls. For ninety or one hundred yards from the left cliff, the water falls in one smooth, even sheet, over a precipice of at least eighty feet. The remaining part of the river precipitates itself with a more rapid current, but being received as it falls by the irregular and somewhat projecting rocks below, forms a splendid prospect of perfectly white foam, two hundred yards in length and eighty in perpendicular elevation. This spray is dissipated into a thousand shapes, sometimes flying up in columns of fifteen or twenty feet, which are then oppressed by larger masses of the white foam, on all of which the sun impresses the brightest colors of the rainbow. Below the Falls the water beats with fury against a ledge of rocks, which extends across the river at one hundred and fifty yards from the precipice. From the perpendicular cliff on the north to the distance of one hundred and twenty yards, the rocks are only a few feet above the water; and, when the river is high, the stream finds a channel across them forty yards wide, and near the higher parts of the ledge, which rise about twenty feet, and terminate abruptly within eighty or ninety yards of the southern side. Between them and the perpendicular cliff on the south, the whole body of water runs with great swiftness. A few small cedars grow near this ridge of rocks, which serves as a barrier to defend a small plain of about three acres, shaded with cottonwood; at the lower extremity of which is a grove of the same trees, where are several deserted Indian cabins of sticks; below which the river is divided by a large rock, several feet above the surface of the water, and extending down the stream for twenty yards. At the distance of three hundred yards from the same ridge is a second abutment of solid perpendicular rock, about sixty feet high, projecting at right angles from the small plain on the north for one hundred and thirty-four yards into the river. After leaving this, the Missouri again spreads itself to its previous breadth of three hundred yards, though with more than its ordinary rapidity.”

Of the rapids above the Falls, Captain Lewis gives us an account in the “Journal.” In it he relates that:

“After passing one continued rapid and three cascades, each three or four feet high, he reached, at the distance of five miles, a second fall. The river is here about four hundred yards wide, and for the distance of three hundred feet rushes down to the depth of nineteen feet, and so irregularly that he gave it the name of the Crooked Falls. From the southern shore it extends obliquely upward about one hundred and fifty yards, and then forms an acute angle downward nearly to the commencement of four small islands close to the northern side. From the perpendicular pitch to these islands, a distance of more than one hundred yards, the water glides down a sloping rock with a velocity almost equal to that of its fall: above this fall the river bends suddenly to the northward. While viewing this place, Captain Lewis heard a loud roar above him, and, crossing the point of a hill a few hundred yards, he saw one of the most beautiful objects in nature: the whole Missouri is suddenly stopped by one shelving rock, which, without a single niche, and with an edge as straight and regular as if formed by art, stretches itself from one side of the river to the other for at least a quarter of a mile. Over this it precipitates itself in an even, uninterrupted sheet, to the perpendicular depth of fifty feet, whence, dashing against the rocky bottom, it rushes rapidly down, leaving behind it a sheet of the purest foam across the river. The scene which it presented was indeed singularly beautiful; since, without any of the wild, irregular sublimity of the lower falls, it combined all the regular elegancies which the fancy of a painter would select to form a beautiful waterfall. The eye had scarcely been regaled with this charming prospect, when at the distance of half a mile Captain Lewis observed another of a similar kind. To this he immediately hastened, and found a cascade stretching across the whole river for a quarter of a mile, with a descent of fourteen feet, though the perpendicular pitch was only six feet. This, too, in any other neighborhood, would have been an object of great magnificence; but after what he had just seen, it became of secondary interest. His curiosity being, however, awakened, he determined to go on, even should night overtake him, to the head of the falls.

“He therefore pursued the southwest course of the river, which was one constant succession of rapids and small cascades, at every one of which the bluffs grew lower, or the bed of the river became more on a level with the plains. At the distance of two and one-half miles he arrived at another cataract, of twenty-six feet. The river is here six hundred yards wide, but the descent is not immediately perpendicular, though the river falls generally with a regular and smooth sheet; for about one-third of the descent a rock protrudes to a small distance, receives the water in its passage, and gives it a curve. On the south side is a beautiful plain, a few feet above the level of the falls; on the north, the country is more broken, and there is a hill not far from the river. Just below the falls is a little island in the middle of the river, well covered with timber. Here on a cottonwood tree an eagle had fixed her nest, and seemed the undisputed mistress of a spot, to contest whose dominion neither man nor beast would venture across the gulfs that surround it, and which is further secured by the mist rising from the falls. This solitary bird could not escape the observation of the Indians, who made the eagle’s nest a part of their description of the falls, which now proves to be correct in almost every particular, except that they did not do justice to the height.

“Just above this is a cascade of about five feet, beyond which, as far as could be discerned, the velocity of the water seemed to abate. Captain Lewis now ascended the hill which was behind him, and saw from its top a delightful plain, extending from the river to the base of the Snowy [Rocky] Mountains to the south and southwest. Along this wide, level country the Missouri pursued its winding course, filled with water to its smooth, grassy banks, while about four miles above, it was joined by a large river flowing from the northwest, through a valley three miles in width, and distinguished by the timber which adorned its shores. The Missouri itself stretches to the south, in one unruffled stream of water, as if unconscious of the roughness it must soon encounter, and bearing on its bosom vast flocks of geese, while numerous herds of buffalo are feeding on the plains which surround it.

“Captain Lewis then descended the hill, and directed his course towards the river falling in from the west. He soon met a herd of at least a thousand buffalo, and, being desirous of providing for supper, shot one of them. The animal immediately began to bleed, and Captain Lewis, who had forgotten to reload his rifle, was intently watching to see him fall, when he beheld a large brown bear which was stealing on him unperceived, and was already within twenty steps. In the first moment of surprise he lifted his rifle; but, remembering instantly that it was not charged, and that he had no time to reload, he felt that there was no safety but in flight. It was in the open, level plain; not a bush nor a tree within three hundred yards; the bank of the river sloping, and not more than three feet high, so that there was no possible mode of concealment. Captain Lewis, therefore, thought of retreating with a quick walk, as fast as the bear advanced, towards the nearest tree; but, as soon as he turned, the bear rushed open-mouthed, and at full speed, upon him. Captain Lewis ran about eighty yards, but finding that the animal gained on him fast, it flashed on his mind that, by getting into the water to such a depth that the bear would be obliged to attack him swimming, there was still some chance of his life; he therefore turned short, plunged into the river about waist-deep, and facing about presented the point of his espontoon. The bear arrived at the water’s edge within twenty feet of him; but as soon as he put himself in this posture of defence, the bear seemed frightened, and wheeling about, retreated with as much precipitation as he had pursued. Very glad to be released from this danger, Captain Lewis returned to the shore, and observed him run with great speed, sometimes looking back as if he expected to be pursued, till he reached the woods. He could not conceive the cause of the sudden alarm of the bear, but congratulated himself on his escape when he saw his own track torn to pieces by the furious animal, and learned from the whole adventure never to suffer his rifle to be a moment unloaded.”

Some time was consumed in the vicinity of the Great Falls of the Missouri, occasioned by having to portage the party and its effects about eighteen miles, so as to overcome the cascades and rapids of the river, as well as to give the final touches to a boat of stout skins, the frame of which they had brought with them from St. Louis for the later purposes of the journey. It was well on in July (1805) before all was ready for the continued transportation, as far as the now shallow and tortuous waters of the Missouri would carry them, to the point where they would have to cross the Great Divide and seek the Columbia River, on which they designed to push their way finally to the Pacific.