_Narrative of_ LEWIS _and_ CLARKE'S _Travels from the Source of the Missouri to the Pacific Ocean._
From the source of the Missouri, we will now accompany these gentlemen in their journey across the Rocky Mountains, and in their subsequent navigation of the Oregan or Columbia to the Pacific Ocean.
They had reached the highest ground in the _Rocky Mountains_, or that elevated part of the continent which constitutes the boundary between the streams flowing to the Atlantic on the one side, and the Pacific on the other. Their next object was to prosecute their journey westward, through this cold and barren track, until they should come to a navigable stream flowing into the Columbia, the great channel of access to the western ocean.
They had been told, by Indians in the Mandan country, that, immediately on crossing the central ridge, they would discover copious rivers running in a direction towards the Columbia. Captain Lewis accordingly found a clear stream forty yards wide, and three feet deep, which ran towards the west. It was bounded on each side by a range of high mountains, and was so closely confined between them, as not only to be unnavigable, but to be impassable along its banks. A still more discouraging circumstance was the total want, in this wintry region, of timber fit for building canoes.
An old Indian, being consulted respecting these mountains, stated them to be so inaccessible, that neither he nor any of his nation had ever attempted to cross them; and another Indian, a native of the south-west mountains, described them in terms scarcely less terrific. The course to the Pacific lay, he said, along rocky steeps, inhabited by savages, who lived in holes, like bears, and fed on roots and on horse-flesh. On descending from the mountainous ridge, he stated that the traveller would find himself in a parched desert of sand, where no animals, of a nature to afford subsistence, could be discovered; and, although this plain was crossed by a large river running towards the Columbia, its banks had no timber for the construction of canoes.
After all these mortifying communications, there appeared to be left, to the present travellers, only one route, that by which some individuals of the Chopunnish Indians, living to the west of the mountains, find means to make their way to this elevated region; and the accounts that had been given of this road, were very discouraging; the Indians being obliged to subsist for many days on berries, and suffering greatly from hunger. The commanders of the expedition were not, however, disheartened; for they were convinced that their men could accomplish a passage without enduring so much hardship as Indians, who are generally accompanied by women and children.