little was as yet known of the vast river, the Columbia, that drained the area on the western slopes of the (Stony) Rocky Mountains and carried its watery burden to the Pacific. Only since the Spring of 1792 was the existence of the great western river definitely known, when Captain Gray of the Boston vessel, the Columbia, then discovered its harbormouth between the high capes that shielded and all but enclosed it from the ocean.

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To probe throughout the great interior track of over 4,000 miles and report upon its resources and characteristic features, as well as to ascertain what native tribes inhabited it, and what relations of amity and commerce the nation that had become its owner might expect to have with them, were matters well worth investigating and reporting upon. To the organization of an expedition to ascertain these and other purposes, President Jefferson, as we have related, now actively addressed himself; and soon he had the satisfaction of seeing its forces assembled ready to set out on its important mission. For the chief command of the Expedition, the President, fortunately, had already in his eye a suitable man, of excellent parts, in the person of a Virginian of good family, under thirty years of age, who at one time had been his own private secretary. This was Captain Meriwether Lewis, who had seen service in the United States army, and who, in his official relations with the President, had had his own interest quickened in the Louisiana Territory he was now, with his colleague and command, about to explore. The colleague we have mentioned, who

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shared with Lewis the task about to be undertaken, was Captain William Clark, a Kentuckian of Virginian origin, who had also been in the army, but was at the time farming in his adopted Kentucky State. His brother was the well-known General George Rogers Clark, who had achieved fame in the Revolutionary era in wars against the Indians. Like Lewis, who was an old comrade, William Clark was admirably fitted for responsible command, and was at the same time familiar with frontier life. He was, moreover, a man of excellent character, as well as of great hardihood and self-reliance, though manifestly lacking in the essentials of a liberal education, as we amusingly see from his misspelled epistles and reports. Such were the two men, singularly loyal to each other and to the task about to be assigned them, who were to be entrusted with the responsible command of the President's commission of investigation in the vast territory the nation had just acquired from France.

Of Captain Lewis, we get a fuller and instructive account from President Jefferson himself, written after the explorer's lamented death, in 1809, when the Expedition had become an interesting part of the national annals. The eulogy we shall, no doubt, be pardoned for here introducing to the reader. Concerning Lewis and his qualifications, the President relates:

"I had now had opportunities of knowing him (Lewis) intimately. Of courage undaunted; possessing a firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from

its direction; careful as a father of those committed to his charge, yet steady in the maintenance of order and discipline; intimate with the Indian character, customs, and principles; habituated to the hunting life; guarded, by exact observation of the vegetables and animals of his own country, against losing time in the description of objects already possessed; honest, disinterested, liberal, of sound understanding, and a fidelity to truth so scrupulous that whatever he should report would be as certain as if seen by ourselves—with all these qualifications, as if selected and implanted by nature in one body for this express purpose, I could have no hesitation in confiding the enterprise to him. To fill up the measure desired, he wanted nothing but a greater familiarity with the technical language of the natural sciences, and readiness in the astronomical observations necessary for the geog. raphy for his route. To acquire these, he repaired to Philadelphia, and placed himself under the tutorage of the distinguished professors of that place, who, with a zeal and emulation enkindled by an ardent devotion to science, communicated to him freely the information requisite for the purposes of the journey. While attending at Lancaster to the fabrication of the arms with which he chose that his men should be provided, he had the benefit of daily communication with Mr. Andrew Ellicott, whose experience in astronomical observation, and practice of it in the woods, enabled him to apprise Captain Lewis of the wants and difficulties he would encounter, and of the substitutes and resources afforded by a woodland and uninhabited country."

How faithful and correct is this characterization of the chief leader of the Expedition, from Jefferson's kindly pen, is well attested by the facts which came out during the progress of the exploring party and by the success which attended the entire mission. Valuable also were the counsels and hints of the President to Captain Lewis in conducting the Expedition, and clear the objects set forth by him to be attained by the explorers in the vast solitudes they were about to enter upon. Considerate and humane also were his instructions as to the attitude which should govern the commanding leader in his intercourse with the Indians to be met with, and minute the matters he desired that the Expedition should gather that would afterwards be helpful to trade and colonization in the region. In regard to the Indians, Mr. Jefferson counsels Captain Lewis to "treat them in the most friendly and conciliating manner which their own conduct will admit; allay all jealousies as to the object of your journey; satisfy them of its innocence; make them acquainted with the position, extent, character, peaceable and commercial disposition, of the United States; of our wish to be neighborly, friendly, and useful to them, and of our dispositions to a commercial intercourse with them; confer with them on the points most convenient as mutual emporiums, and the articles of most desirable interchange for them and us. If a few of their influential chiefs, within practicable distance, wish to visit us, arrange such a visit with them, and furnish them with authority to call on our officers, on their entering the United States, to have them

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conveyed to this place at the public expense. of them should wish to have some of their people brought up with us, and taught such arts as may be useful to them, we will receive, instruct, and take care of them." Hardly less practical was the array of motley garments and dress outfits, coins, trinkets, and other articles with which the Expedition was furnished as the material of exchange or barter with the natives, or as presents for the Indian chiefs and their concubines. Careful, moreover, were the hints given the Expedition leaders as to their conduct and the course to be pursued in the event of the mission meeting with hostilities from the natives en route; though, necessarily, much latitude was allowed them in taking their own course in dealing with hostile tribes and in pressing on through, or retiring from, situations of grave menace or threatened hurt. A like latitude was given the command as to the routes to be pursued across the continent and returning, other than the general course tentatively indicated; while instructions were considerately given the leader to draw upon the national exchequer, through local agents of the United States, for the moneys needed for the unprovidedfor expenses and other incidental charges of the journey. The latter provision, as it obviously turned out, was a work of pure supererogation, since local banking offices or officials of the Government service were not likely to be found in the domains of desolation and solitude.