-
"All Around The Village The Women Are Busily Employed In Gathering
And Dressing The Pasheco-Root, Of Which Large Quantities
Are Heaped In Piles Over The Plain.
We now felt severely
the consequence of eating heartily after our late privations.
Captain Lewis and two of the
Men were taken very ill last evening;
to-day he could hardly sit on his horse, while others were obliged
to be put on horseback, and some, from extreme weakness and pain,
were forced to lie down alongside of the road for some time.
At sunset we reached the island where the hunters had been
left on the 22d. They had been unsuccessful, having killed
only two deer since that time, and two of them were very sick.
A little below this island is a larger one on which we camped,
and administered Rush's pills to the sick."
The illness of the party continued for several days, and not much
progress was made down-stream. Having camped, on the twenty-seventh
of September, in the Kooskooskee River, at a place where plenty of good
timber was found, preparations for building five canoes were begun.
From this time to the fifth of October, all the men capable of labor
were employed in preparing the canoes. The health of the party
gradually recruited, though they still suffered severely from want
of food; and, as the hunters had but little success in procuring game,
they were obliged on the second to kill one of their horses.
Indians from different quarters frequently visited them, but all that
could be obtained from them was a little fish and some dried roots.
This diet was not only unnutritious, but in many cases it caused
dysentery and nausea.
Chapter XV
Down the Pacific Slope
The early days of October were spent in making preparations for the
descent of the river, - the Kooskooskee. Here they made their canoes,
and they called their stopping-place Canoe Camp. This was at
the junction of the north fork of the river with the main stream;
and all below that point is called the Lower Kooskooskee, while that
above is known as the upper river. The latitude of the camp,
according to the journal of the explorers, was 46'0 34' 56" north.
Here they buried in a cache their saddles, horse-gear, and a small
supply of powder and musket balls for possible emergencies.
The Kooskooskee, it should be borne in mind, is now better known
as the Clearwater; it empties into the Snake River, and that into
the Columbia. As far as the explorers knew the water-course down
which they were to navigate, they called it Clark's River, in honor
of Captain Clark. But modern geographers have displaced the name
of that eminent explorer and map-maker and have divided the stream,
or streams, with other nomenclature.
On the eighth of October the party set out on their long water
journey in five canoes, one of which was a small craft intended
to go on ahead and pilot the way (which, of course, was unknown)
for the four larger ones, in which travelled the main party
with their luggage.
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