Lewis River

“ They were now nearer sea level than at any time since passing Council Bluffs, for the Wilderness is generally above two thousand feet.
The natives were kind and obliging, and though provisions had been alarmingly scarce since leaving the Missouri, they managed to secure enough of one kind or another, roots, dried salmon, horse meat, dogs, and fish, to keep themselves alive. Descending in their canoes the Clearwater, they entered Snake River, or, as they called it, Lewis River, a junction marked to-day by a thriving town named Lewiston in honour of the captain. ”

“ It is a great and mighty river, bulwarked by mountains that form some of the grandest handiwork of the Almighty, and a never-ending source of wonder and admiration to him or her who is privileged to look upon their scarred, storm-beaten, forest-draped acclivities. Year after year I ride up and down the heaving, eddying stream and gaze with increasing love and admiration upon the matchless majesty and grandeur of the scene. It is a great poem of the centuries, expressed not in words
Looking south on the old Lewis and Clark Tratl at Lolo Hot Springs, a few miles south from Missoula, Montana. ”

“ Lewis's river appeas to pass through these mots. near their N. Eastern extremity. these hills terminate in a high level plain between the Kooskooske and Lewis's river. these plains are in many places well covered with the Longleafed pine, with some Larch and balsom fir. the soil is extreemly fertile no dose it appear so thisty as that of the same apparent texture of the open plains. it produces great quantities of the quawmash a root of which the natives are extreemly fond. ”

“ On November 2 the canoes were partly carried around, partly slid through, the rapids which formed the foot of other rapids termed by the captains the Great Shute. Presently the river opened two miles wide, and smooth and placid. That night the water rose nine inches on a stake set at the river’s edge in front of the camp.
“We’re in tidewater, lads!” announced Captain Lewis. “The ocean tides ascend this far. That means there are no more rapids; the ocean itself can’t be very distant.” ”

“ Toward the last of April Lewis went ahead to the mouth of the Rochejaune, the Yellow Rock, or Yellowstone River, passing through herds of elk, antelope, and buffalo, so tame they would scarce move out of his way. Beautiful dun deer snorted and pawed the leaves, then half trusting, half timorous, slipped into the thicket. No one but Sacajawea had ever before been over this road.
In May they reached the land where even the beaver were gentle, for they had never been hunted. No white man, so far as they knew, had ever trodden these wilds. ”

“ Ordway as the Great falls of the Columbia the river 200 yards wide. their common house at this fishery is built of Split timber 150 feet long and 35 feet in width, flat at top. the general Course from here to the forks of Lewis's river is a little to the west of South about 45 ms. The men at this Season resort their fisheries while the womin are employed in collecting roots-. both forks above the junction of Lewis's river appear to enter a high Mountainious Country. ”

“ The river now becomes very crooked, and forms bends on each side; the current too is rapid, and cut into a great number of channels, and sometimes shoals, the beds of which consist of coarse gravel. The islands are unusually numerous: on the right are high plains occasionally forming cliffs of rocks and hills; while the left was an extensive low ground and prairie intersected by a number of bayous or channels falling into the river. Captain Lewis, who had walked through it with Chaboneau, his wife, and two invalids, joined us at dinner, a few miles above our camp. ”

“ At two and a half miles we reached the centre of a bend towards the south passing a small island, and at one mile and a quarter beyond this reached about nine in the morning the mouth of a river seventy yards wide, which falls in from the southeast. Here the country suddenly opens into extensive and beautiful meadows and plains, surrounded on every side with distant and lofty mountains. Captain Lewis went up this stream for about half a mile, and from the height of a limestone cliff could observe its course about seven miles, and the three forks of the Missouri, of which this river is one. ”

“ After taking a second draught of the falls, captain Lewis directed his course N. 10° W. with an intention of striking Maria’s river at the point to which he had ascended it in 1804. The country is here spread into wide and level plains, swelling like the ocean, in which the view is uninterrupted by a single tree or shrub, and is diversified only by the moving herds of buffaloe. The soil consists of a light-coloured earth, intermixed with a large proportion of coarse gravel without sand, and is by no means so fertile as either the plains of the Columbia, or those lower down the Missouri. ”

“ Captain Lewis continued his course along the river through the valley, which continued much as it was yesterday, except that it now widens to nearly twelve miles; the plains too are more broken and have some scattered pine near the mountains, where they rise higher than hitherto. In the level parts of the plains and the river bottoms there is no timber except small cottonwood near the margin, and an undergrowth of narrow-leafed willow, small honeysuckle, rosebushes, currants, serviceberry, and gooseberry, [338] and a little of a small species of birch ”

“ Lewis also figured that Fidler in his map showed only small streams coming in from the west, ‘and the presumption is very strong that those little streams do not penetrate the Rocky Mountains to such distance as would afford rational grounds for a conjecture that they had their sources near any navigable branch of the Columbia.’ He was right in that—and he says those little creeks may run into a river the Indians called the Medicine River. ”

“ Anthony, he, too, heard of the Shining Mountains.
"The four most capital rivers of North America take their rise about the centre of this continent," said Carver. "The River Bourbon, which empties into Hudson's Bay; the Waters of St. Lawrence; the Mississippi; and the River Oregon, or the River of the West, that falls into the Pacific Ocean at the Stra its of Anian."
What little bird whispered "Oregon" in Carver's ear? No such word is known in any Indian tongue. Had some Spanish sailor told of a shore "like his own green Arragon"?
And now Lewis and Clark are on the sunset path. ”

“ Among these birds they distinguished the brown thrush, robin, turtledove, linnet, goldfinch, the large and small blackbird, the wren, and some others. As they came along, the whole of the party were of opinion that this river was the true Missouri, but captain Lewis being fully persuaded that it was neither the main stream, nor that which it would be advisable to ascend, gave it the name of Maria's river. ”

“ The land is the most thirsty we have ever seen; notwithstanding all the rain which has fallen, the earth is not wet for more than two inches deep, and resembles thawed ground; but if it requires more water to saturate it than the common soils, on the other hand it yields its moisture with equal difficulty. In passing along the side of one of these bluffs at a narrow pass thirty yards in length, captain Lewis slipped, and but for a fortunate recovery, by means of his espontoon, would then have been precipitated into the river over a precipice of about ninety feet. ”

“ LEWIS'S RIVER TO THE COLUMBIA.
From the mouth of the Kooskooskee to that of the Lewis is about a hundred miles; which distance they descended in seven days. The navigation was greatly impeded by rapids, which they passed with more or less danger and difficulty; being greatly indebted to the assistance of the Indians, as they thankfully acknowledge. Sometimes they were obliged to unload their boats, and to carry them round by land. All these rapids are fishing-places, greatly resorted to in the season. ”

“ Seven miles further the river enters the mountains, and here end those extensive prairies on this side, though they widen in their course towards the southeast, and form an Indian route to Dearborn’s river, and thence to the Missouri. From the multitude of knobs irregularly scattered through them, captain Lewis called this country the Prairie of the Knobs. They abound in game, as we saw goats, deer, great numbers of the burrowing squirrels, some curlews, bee martins, woodpeckers, plover, robins, doves, ravens, hawks, ducks, a variety of sparrows, and yesterday observed swans on Werner’s creek. ”

“ Chaboneau grinned.
“Dey ’fraid of ze tim-tim rapids. Ze chief say no use to pay dem, anyhow. His people take ever’t’ing from dem when dey go t’rough village.”
Down, down, down with the swift current. The Koos-koos-kee joined the other river, which, the captains figured, was the same river on whose head-waters, far, far eastward, the camp of Chief Ca-me-ah-wait and his Snakes had been located. The Lewis River did they name it, but on modern maps it is the Snake. ”

“ August 20, the reunited party was encamped several miles below the confluence of the Lemhi and Salmon rivers, probably in the same cove occupied by Bonneville 27 years later, when Captain Clark conferred upon the stream, here 300 feet in width, the name Lewis's river and noted in the journal the information that Captain Lewis was the first white man to visit its waters. During the early days when the country was occupied by mountain men it seems that the principal rivers, with a few exceptions, were called after the tribes which inhabited the adjacent country. ”

“ When the sun advanced above the horizon the sacrifice was at its height. But for the crackling of the flames and the murmur of a babbling stream on its way down the hill to join the river below, the silence had hitherto been unbroken. As the sun rose the Incas marched slowly round the burning mass, plucking the wool from the scorched carcase, and chanting monotonously: "O Creator, Sun and Thunder, be for ever young! Multiply the people; let them ever be in peace!" ”

“ Having completed an observation of the sun’s meridian altitude, captain Lewis proceeded along the north side of Maria’s river. The bottoms are in general about half a mile wide, and possess considerable quantities of cottonwood timber, and an underbrush, consisting of honeysuckle, rose bushes, narrow-leafed willow, and the plant called by the engagees, buffaloe grease. The plains are level and beautiful, but the soil is thin and overrun with prickly pears. ”

“ XXXIX. World's Desire Love, there is a castle built in a country desolate, On a rock above a forest where the trees are grim and great, Blasted with the lightning sharp-giant boulders strewn between, And the mountains rise above, and the cold ravine Echoes to the crushing roar and thunder of a mighty river Raging down a cataract. Very tower and forest quiver And the grey wolves are afraid and the call of birds is drowned, And the thought and speech of man in the boiling water's sound. ”

“ Seven miles above the mouth of the river, at the head of navigation, nestling at the foot of the so-called mountain, is Lewiston, named in 1805 in honor of Governor Lewis, of New York. Here, in 1678, La Salle "constructed a cabin of palisades to serve as a magazine or storehouse." And this was the commencement of the portage to the river above the Falls, which passed over nearly the same route as the present road from Lewiston, which is still called the Portage Road. Here, too, the first railway in the United States was constructed. ”

“ The powerful search-light bored a hole through intense darkness ahead, now and then showing a mountain peak; at sight of which Hike shot the machine up so fast that she seemed about to turn turtle. Sometimes the light, turned down on earth, picked out a mining town, with everyone asleep; sometimes, a broad river, shining in the light, between threatening rock walls.
On the Hustle dashed, never hesitating, over valleys and patches of yellow desert, from which a warm wind rose to flutter the planes; over hills and forests and long railroad-trestles where rails flashed in the light. ”

“ Evans in 1815, is now a considerable stream. The distance from the depot is about nine miles; the country on both banks of the river low but good: the upper levels would afford excellent grazing, but the soil is of inferior quality: the points of the low hills end alternately on each side the river. The land up both banks of Lewis's Creek is very rich, and covered with herbage. The boats had come safely down the river, although the large boat grounded once; the river appears to me to be from three to five feet above its usual level. ”

“ That powerful river throws out vast quantities of coarse sand which contribute to give a new face to the Missouri, which is now much more impeded by islands. The sand, as it is drifted down, adheres in time to some of the projecting points from the shore, and forms a barrier to the mud, which at length fills to the same height with the sandbar itself; as soon as it has acquired a consistency, the willow grows there the first year, and by its roots assists the solidity of the whole: as the mud and sand accumulate the cottonwood tree next appears ”

“ Lewis and Clarke's River is a stream of considerable magnitude, in many places from two hundred and fifty to three hundred yards broad, very deep and rapid ; its general course is easterly [westerly?] . At twenty-five miles from its junction with the Columbia, the country near its banks changes from undulating and barren to lofty, rugged mountains, and not a blade of grass can be seen, except in the valleys and near springs, where a little vegetation survives the intense heat. We rose always at daybreak, and camped at 3 or 4 i. ”