United States or Iran ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
We took leave of the Shoshonees, who set out on their visit to the Missouri at the same time that we, accompanied by the old guide, his four sons, and another Indian, began the descent of the Lemhi River, along the same road which Captain Clark had previously pursued.
Captain Lewis anxiously wished to push on to meet Clark, who, as we have seen, was then far down on the Salmon River. Lewis was still at the forks of Jefferson River, it should be borne in mind; and their objective point was the upper Shoshonee village on the Lemhi River, across the divide.
This was the first salmon he had seen, and the captain was now assured that he was on the headwaters of the Columbia. This stream was what is now known as the Lemhi River. The water was clear and limpid, flowing down a bed of gravel; its general direction was a little north of west. The journal says:
While on the way over the divide, Lewis was greatly troubled by the freaks of the Indians, who, regardless of their promises, would propose to return to the buffalo country on the eastern side of the mountains. Learning that Cameahwait and his chiefs had sent a messenger over to the Lemhi to notify the village to come and join an expedition of this sort, Captain Lewis was dismayed.
Should a water route be taken from the Shoshone villages, it would be necessary to descend the Lemhi to Salmon River; the Salmon would conduct them to the Snake, and that to the Columbia. But they were told that this course was impracticable. The Lemhi flowed in an ungovernable torrent through wild cañons which the hardiest adventurers from this tribe had never succeeded in passing.
"Paul was all right at last accounts. We will have a merry Christmas yet." "This is not from Paul!" Mrs. Bogardus fixed her eyes upon a letter which she held at arm's length, feeling for her glasses. "It's not for me 'Miss Bogardus." "Ah, well. I saw it was postmarked Lemhi Fort Lemhi, you know. Sit down, madam. Suppose I give you Mr. Winslow's report first Lieutenant Winslow.
To descend the Lemhi was entirely out of the question. While he was writing so calmly of his plan, he and his men were suffering from hunger, having only a meagre supply of fish and dried berries. A day or two later he wrote: "These Indians, to whom this life is familiar, seem contented, although they depend for subsistence on the scanty provisions of the fishery.
Arriving at the Shoshonee village on the Lemhi, Captain Lewis found a note from Captain Clark, sent back by a runner, informing him of the difficulty and impossibility of a water route to the Columbia. Cameahwait, being told that his white friends would now need twenty more horses, said that he would do what he could to help them. The journal here adds:
The first American settlement in Nevada was one of Mormons in the Carson Valley, at Genoa, in 1851. In Wyoming, as early as 1854, was a Mormon settlement at Green River, near Fort Bridger, known as Fort Supply. In Idaho, too, preeminence is claimed by virtue of a Mormon settlement at Fort Lemhi, on the Salmon River, in 1855, and at Franklin, in Cache Valley, in 1860.
No awkward questions were asked in the city drawing-rooms or at the clubs. For a tough half hour or so at Fort Lemhi they had realized how they stood in the eyes of those unbiased military judges. The shock had a bracing effect for a time. Both boys were said to be much improved by their Western trip and by the hardships of that frightful homeward march. Mrs.
Word Of The Day