A successful paraphrase
It was Biddle's task to weave this mass of
heterogeneous
data into a readable paraphrase which should have unity and
a
simple and forceful literary style. Adopting so far
as possible
the language of the original journals,
where essential he amplifies and
explains them from
his additional data—Clark and Shannon's verbal
statements,
and the Ordway and Gass journals, assisting him to a more
complete understanding. The nearly 1,500,000 words of
manuscript he
condensed into 370,000 printed words. The
first person plural is used,
save where the captains are individually
mentioned, and then we have the third person singular.
So skilfully
is the work done, that probably few have realized
that they had not before
them the veritable journals of the
explorers themselves, written upon the
spot. The result will
always remain one of the best digested and most
interesting
books of American travel, comparable in many respects with
Astoria and Bonneville's
Adventures—of course lacking Irving's
charm of style, but possessing what Irving's two
Western classics
do not, the ring of truth, which never fails to appeal to
those
who love a tale of noble adventure in the cause of
civilization.
[44]
