第88章

While the trade for these was being conducted by our men, Yellept brought a fine white horse, and presented him to Captain Clark, expressing at the same time a wish to have a kettle; but, on being informed that we had already disposed of the last kettle we could spare, he said he would be content with any present we chose to make him in return.

Captain Clark thereupon gave him his sword, for which the chief had before expressed a desire, adding one hundred balls, some powder, and other small articles, with which he appeared perfectly satisfied. We were now anxious to depart, and requested Yellept to lend us canoes for the purpose of crossing the river; but he would not listen to any proposal of the kind.

He wished us to remain for two or three days; but, at all events, would not consent to our going to-day, for he had already sent to invite his neighbors, the Chimnapoos, to come down this evening and join his people in a dance for our amusement.

We urged in vain that, by setting out sooner, we would the earlier return with the articles they desired; for a day, he observed, would make but little difference.

We at length mentioned that, as there was no wind it was now the best time to cross the river, and we would merely take the horses over and return to sleep at their village.

To this he assented; we then crossed with our horses, and having hobbled them, returned to their camp.

"Fortunately, there was among these Wollwaollahs a prisoner belonging to a tribe of Shoshonee or Snake Indians, residing to the south of the Multnomah and visiting occasionally the heads of Wollawollah Creek.

Our Shoshonee woman, Sacajawea, though she belonged to a tribe near the Missouri, spoke the same language as this prisoner; by their means we were able to explain ourselves to the Indians, and answer all their inquiries with respect to ourselves and the object of our journey.

Our conversation inspired them with much confidence, and they soon brought several sick persons, for whom they requested our assistance.

We splintered [splinted] the broken arm of one, gave some relief to another, whose knee was contracted by rheumatism, and administered what we thought beneficial for ulcers and eruptions of the skin on various parts of the body which are very common disorders among them.

But our most valuable medicine was eye-water, which we distributed, and which, indeed, they required very much.

"A little before sunset the Chimnapoos, amounting to one hundred men and a few women, came to the village, and, joining the Wollawollahs, who were about the same number of men, formed themselves in a circle round our camp, and waited very patiently till our men were disposed to dance, which they did for about an hour, to the music of the violin. They then requested the Indians to dance.

With this they readily complied; and the whole assemblage, amounting, with the women and children of the village, to several hundred, stood up, and sang and danced at the same time.

The exercise was not, indeed, very violent nor very graceful; for the greater part of them were formed into a solid column, round a kind of hollow square, stood on the same place, and merely jumped up at intervals, to keep time to the music.

Some, however, of the more active warriors entered the square and danced round it sideways, and some of our men joined in with them, to the great satisfaction of the Indians. The dance continued till ten o'clock."

By the thirtieth of April the expedition was equipped with twenty-three horses, most of which were young and excellent animals; but many of them were afflicted with sore backs. All Indians are cruel masters and hard riders, and their saddles are so rudely made that it is almost impossible for an Indian's horse to be free from scars; yet they continue to ride after the animal's back is scarified in the most horrible manner.

The expedition was now in what we know as Walla Walla County, Washington, and they were travelling along the river Walla Walla, leaving the Columbia, which has here a general direction of northerly.

The course of the party was northeast, their objective point being that where Waitesburg is now built, near the junction of Coppie Creek and the Touchet River. They were in a region of wood in plenty, and for the first time since leaving the Long Narrows, or Dalles, they had as much fuel as they needed.

On the Touchet, accordingly, they camped for the sake of having a comfortable night; the nights were cold, and a good fire by which to sleep was an attraction not easily resisted.

The journal, April 30, has this entry:--"We were soon supplied by Drewyer with a beaver and an otter, of which we took only a part of the beaver, and gave the rest to the Indians. The otter is a favorite food, though much inferior, at least in our estimation, to the dog, which they will not eat.

The horse is seldom eaten, and never except when absolute necessity compels them, as the only alternative to dying of hunger.

This fastidiousness does not, however, seem to proceed so much from any dislike to the food, as from attachment to the animal itself; for many of them eat very heartily of the horse-beef which we give them."

On the first day of May, having travelled forty miles from their camp near the mouth of the Walla Walla, they camped between two points at which are now situated the two towns of Prescott, on the south, and Waitesburg, on the north.

Their journal says:--"We had scarcely encamped when three young men came up from the Wollawollah village, with a steel-trap which had inadvertently been left behind, and which they had come a whole day's journey in order to restore.

This act of integrity was the more pleasing, because, though very rare among Indians, it corresponded perfectly with the general behavior of the Wollawollahs, among whom we had lost carelessly several knives, which were always returned as soon as found. We may, indeed, justly affirm, that of all the Indians whom we had met since leaving the United States, the Wollawollahs were the most hospitable, honest, and sincere."