First Across the Continent: The Story of the Exploring Expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-5-6Brooks, Noah
History
First Across the Continent: The Story of the Exploring Expedition of Lewis and Clark in 1804-5-6
Brooks, Noah
Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804-1806); United States -- Discovery and exploration; West (U.S.) -- Description and travel
After a long and tedious trip, the camp of the saltmakers was reached,
and Captain Clark and his men went on to the remains of the whale, only
the skeleton being left by the rapacious and hungry Indians. The whale
had been stranded between two shore villages tenanted by the Killamucks,
as Captain Clark called them. They are now known as the Tillamook
Indians, and their name is preserved in Tillamook County, Oregon. The
white men found it difficult to secure much of the blubber, or the oil.
Although the Indians had large quantities of both, they sold it with
much reluctance. In Clark’s private diary is found this entry: “Small
as this stock (of oil and lubber) is I prize it highly; and thank
Providence for directing the whale to us; and think him more kind to
us than he was to Jonah, having sent this monster to be swallowed by us
instead of swallowing us as Jonah’s did.” While here, the party had a
startling experience, as the journal says:--
“Whilst smoking with the Indians, Captain Clark was surprised, about ten
o’clock, by a loud, shrill outcry from the opposite village, on hearing
which all the Indians immediately started up to cross the creek, and the
guide informed him that someone had been killed. On examination one
of the men (M’Neal) was discovered to be absent, and a guard (Sergeant
Pryor and four men) despatched, who met him crossing the creek in great
haste. An Indian belonging to another band, who happened to be with the
Killamucks that evening, had treated him with much kindness, and walked
arm in arm with him to a tent where our man found a Chinnook squaw,
who was an old acquaintance. From the conversation and manner of the
stranger, this woman discovered that his object was to murder the white
man for the sake of the few articles on his person; when he rose and
pressed our man to go to another tent where they would find something
better to eat, she held M’Neal by the blanket; not knowing her object,
he freed himself from her, and was going on with his pretended friend,
when she ran out and gave the shriek which brought the men of the
village over, and the stranger ran off before M’Neal knew what had
occasioned the alarm.”
The “mighty hunter” of the Lewis and Clark expedition was Drewyer, whose
name has frequently been mentioned in these pages. Under date of January
12, the journal has this just tribute to the man:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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