[Lewis:]
Fort Mandan April 7th. 1805.[8]
Having on this day at 4. P.M. completed
every arrangement
necessary for our departure, we dismissed the barge and
crew
with orders to return without loss of time to St. Louis, a small
canoe with two French hunters accompanyed the barge; these
men had
assended the missouri with us the last year as engages.[9]
The barge crew
consisted of six soldiers and two [blank space
in MS.] Frenchmen; two
Frenchmen and a Ricara Indian also
take their passage in her as far as the
Ricara Vilages, at which
place we expect Mr. Tiebeau [Tabeau] to embark
with his
peltry who in that case will make an addition of two, perhaps
four men to the crew of the barge. We gave Richard Warfington,
a discharged Corpl., the charge of the Barge and crew,
and confided to his
care likewise our dispatches to the government,
letters to our private friends, and a number of articles
to the
President the United States.[10]
One of the Frenchmen
by the Name of (Joseph) Gravline an honest discrete man and
an
excellent boat-man is imployed to conduct the barge as
a pilot; we have
therefore every hope that the barge and with
her our dispatches will
arrive safe at St.. Louis. Mr. Gravlin
who speaks the Ricara language extreemly well, has
been imployed
to conduct a few of the Recara
Chiefs to the seat of
government who have promised us to decend in the
barge to
S
t: Liwis with that view.
At same
moment that the Barge departed from Fort Mandan,
Capt. Clark emba[r]ked with our party and proceeded up
the River. as
I had used no exercise for several weeks, I
determined to walk on shore as
far as our encampment of this
evening; accordingly I continued my walk on
the N. side of
the River about six miles, to the upper Village of the
Mandans,
and called on the Black Cat or Pose-cop′-se-ha′, the
great chief
of the Mandans; he was not at home; I rested myself a [few]
minutes, and finding that the party had not arrived I returned
about
2 miles and joined them at their encampment on the N.
side of the river
opposite the lower Mandan village. Our
part[y] now consisted of the
following Individuals. Sergts.
John Ordway, Nathaniel
Prior, & Patric Gass; Privates, William
Bratton, John Colter, Reubin, and Joseph Fields, John
Shields,
George Gibson, George Shannon, John Potts, John
Collins, Joseph
Whitehouse, Richard Windsor, Alexander
Willard, Hugh Hall, Silas Goodrich,
Robert Frazier, Peter
Crouzatt, John Baptiest la Page, Francis Labiech,
Hue Mc.. Neal,
William Warner, Thomas P. Howard, Peter
Wiser, and John
B. Thompson. Interpreters, George
Drewyer and Tauasant
Charbono also a Black man by the name of York,
servant
to Capt. Clark, an Indian Woman wife to Charbono with a
young child, and a Mandan man who had promised us to
accompany us as
far as the Snake Indians with a view to bring
about a good understanding
and friendly intercourse between
that nation and his own, the Minetares
and Ahwahharways.
Our vessels consisted of six small canoes, and two
large
perogues. This little fleet altho' not quite so rispectable as
those of Columbus or Capt. Cook, were still viewed by us
with as
much pleasure as those deservedly famed adventurers
ever beheld theirs;
and I dare say with quite as much anxiety
for their safety and
preservation. we were now about to penetrate
a country at least two thousand miles in width, on which
the foot of
civilized man had never trodden; the good or evil
it had in store for us was for experiment yet to
determine, and
these little vessells contained every article by which we
were
to expect to subsist or defend ourselves. however, as the
state
of mind in which we are, generally gives the colouring to
events, when the
immagination is suffered to wander into
futurity, the picture which now
presented itself to me was a
most pleasing one. enterta[in]ing as I do,
the most confident
hope of succeeding in a voyage which had formed a
da[r]ling
project of mine for the last ten years, I could but esteem this
moment of my departure as among the most happy of my life.
The party
are in excellent health and sperits, zealously attached
to the enterprise,
and anxious to proceed; not a whisper of
murmur or discontent to be heard
among them, but all act in
unison, and with the most perfict harmony. I
took an early
supper this evening and went to bed. Capt. Clark myself the
two Interpretters and the woman and child sleep in a tent of
dressed
skins. this tent is in the Indian stile, formed of a
number of dressed
Buffaloe skins sewed together with sinues.
[11]
it is cut
in such manner that when foalded double it forms the
quarter of a circle,
and is left open at one side here it may be
attatched or loosened at
pleasure (
Qu) by strings which are
sewed to its
sides for the purpose. to erect this tent, a parsel
of ten or twelve poles
are provided, fore or five of which are
attatched together at one end,
they are then elivated and their
lower extremities are spread in a
circular manner to a width
proportionate to the demention of the lodge; in
the same
position orther poles are leant against those, and the leather is
then thrown over them forming a conic figure.
