XIX
_A WHALE ASHORE_
"A whale! a whale ashore!"
When Chief Coboway brought word there was great excitement at FortClatsop. Everybody wanted to see the whale, but few could go. CaptainClark appointed twelve men to be ready at daylight.
Sacajawea, in the privacy of her own room that Sunday evening, spoketo Charboneau. Now Charboneau wanted her to stay and attend to the"l'Apalois"--roasting meats on a stick,--and knowing that the childwould have to be looked after, slipped over to the Captains,discussing by the fire.
"Sacajawea t'ink she want to see de whale. She ought not go."
"Very well," answered the Captains, scarce heeding. "She better stayat the fort. It would be a hard jaunt for a woman to go over TillamookHead."
Charboneau went back. "De Captinne say you cannot go!"
This was a staggering blow to Sacajawea, but her woman's determinationhad become aroused and she took the rostrum, so to speak. Leaving thebaby Touissant with his father, she in turn slipped over to theCaptains.
Sacajawea was a born linguist. "Captinne, you remember w'en we reachde rivers and you knew not which to follow? I show de country an'point de stream. Again w'en my husband could not spik, I spik for you.
"Now, Captinne, I travel great way to see de Beeg Water. I climb demountain an' help de boat on de rapide. An' now dis monstous fish hafcome"--Sacajawea could scarce restrain her tears. Sacajawea was only awoman, and a brave little woman at that.
Captain Lewis was moved. "Sacajawea, you are one of those who are bornnot to die. Of course you can go. Go and be getting ready, and," headded, "if Charboneau wants to go too, he will have to carry thebaby!"
They breakfasted by candle-light. Everybody was ready next morning,but Sacajawea was ahead of them all. Charboneau looked at her out ofthe corner of his eye, but said nothing. More than once the Captainshad reminded him of his duty.
The sun rose clear and cloudless on a land of springtime, and yet itwas only January. Robins sang around the stockade, bluebirds whizzedby, silver in the sunlight. Two canoes proceeded down the Netul intoMeriwether Bay, on the way to the Clatsop town.
After a day's adventure, they camped near a herd of elk in thebeautiful moonlight. At noon, next day, they reached the salt-makers.Here Jo Fields, Bratton, and Gibson had their brass kettles under arock arch, boiling and boiling seawater into a gallon of salt a day.
Hiring Twiltch, a young Indian, for guide, they climbed TillamookHead, about thirty miles south of Cape Disappointment. Upon thispromontory, Clark's Point of View, they paused before the boisterousPacific, breaking with fury and flinging its waves above the Rock ofTillamook.
On one side the blue Columbia widened into bays studded with Chinookand Clatsop villages; on the other stretched rich prairies, enlivenedby beautiful streams and lakes at the foot of the hills. Behind, inserried rank, the Douglas spruce--"the tree of Turner's dreams," theking of conifers,--stood monarch of the hills. Two hundred, threehundred feet in air they towered, a hundred feet without a limb, sodense that not a ray of sun could reach the ground beneath.
Sacajawea, save Pocahontas the most travelled Indian Princess in ourhistory, spoke not a word, but looked with calm and shining eye uponthe fruition of her hopes. Now she could go back to the Mandan townsand speak of things that Madame Jussaume had never seen, and of theBig Water beyond the Shining Mountains.
Down the steep and ragged rocks that overhung the sea, they clamberedto a Tillamook village, where lay the great whale, stranded on theshore. Nothing was left but a skeleton, for from every Indian villagewithin travelling distance, men and women were working like bees uponthe huge carcass. Then home they went, trailing over the mountains,every squaw with a load of whale blubber on her back, to be for many amonth the dainty of an Indian lodge.
These Indian lodges or houses were a source of great interest to Lewisand Clark. Sunk four feet into the ground and rising well above, likean out-door cellar, they were covered with ridgepoles and low slopingroofs. The sides were boarded with puncheons of cedar, laboriouslysplit with elkhorn wedges and stone hammers.
A door in the gable admitted to this half-underground home by means ofa ladder. Around the inner walls, beds of mats were raised onscaffolds two or three feet high, and under the beds were depositedwinter stores of dried berries, roots, nuts, and fish.
In the centre of each house a fireplace, six or eight feet long, wassunk in the floor, and surrounded by a cedar fender and mats for thefamily to sit on. The walls, lined with mats and cedar bark, formed avery effective shelter.
Did some poor stranded mariner teach the savage this semi-civilisedarchitecture, or was it evolved by his own genius? However this maybe, these houses were found from Yaquina Bay to Yakutat.
In such a house as this Captain Clark visited Coboway, chief of theClatsops, in his village on the sunny side of a hill. As soon as heentered, clean mats were spread. Coboway's wife, Tse-salks, aTillamook Princess, brought berries and roots and fish on neatplatters of rushes. Syrup of sallal berries was served in bowls ofhorn and meat in wooden trenchers.
Naturally, Sacajawea was interested in domestic utensils, woodenbowls, spoons of horn, skewers and spits for roasting meat, andbeautifully woven water-tight baskets.
Every squaw habitually carried a knife, fastened to the thumb by aloop of twine, to be hid under the robe when visitors came. Theseknives, bought of the traders, were invaluable to the Indian mother.With it she dug roots, cut wood, meat, or fish, split rushes for herflag mats and baskets, and fashioned skins for dresses and moccasins.Ever busy they were, the most patient, devoted women in the world.
Sacajawea, with her beautiful dress and a husband who sometimescarried the baby, was a new sort of mortal on this Pacific coast.
While they were conversing, a flock of ducks lit on the water. Clarktook his rifle and shot the head off one. The astonished Indiansbrought the bird and marvelled. Their own poor flintlocks, loaded withbits of gravel when shot failed, often would not go off in coldweather, but here was "very great medicine." They examined the duck,the musket, and the small bullets, a hundred to the pound.
"Kloshe musquet! wake! kum-tux musquet! A very good musquet! No! donot understand this kind of musquet!"
Thus early is it a historical fact that the Chinook jargon was alreadyestablished on the Pacific coast. This jargon, a polyglot of traders'tongues, like the old Lingua Franca of the Mediterranean, is used bythe coast Indians to this day from the Columbia River to Point Barrowon the Arctic. And for its birth we may thank the Boston traders.
Chinooks, Clatsops, Tillamooks faced that stormy beach and lived onwinter stores of roots, berries, fish, and dried meat. Their beautifulelastic bows of white cedar were seldom adequate to kill the greatelk, so when the rush bags under the beds were empty, they watched forfish thrown up by the waves.
"Sturgeon is very good," said a Clatsop in English, peering and pryingalong the hollows of the beach. But the great whale, Ecola, that was agodsend to the poor people. Upon it now they might live until thesalmon came, flooding the country with plenty.
Old Chief Coboway of the Clatsops watched those shores for sixtyyears. He did not tell this story to Lewis and Clark, but he told itto his children, and so it belongs here.
"An old woman came crying to the Clatsop village: 'Something on theshore! Behold, it is no whale! Two spruce trees stand upright on it.Ropes are tied to those spruce trees. Behold bears came out of it!'Then all the people ran. Behold the bears had built a fire ofdriftwood on the shore. They were popping corn. They held copperkettles in their hands. They had lids. The bears pointed inland andasked for water. Then two people took the kettles and ran inland. Theyhid. Some climbed up into the thing. They went down into the ship. Itwas full of boxes. They found brass buttons in a string half a fathomlong. They went out. They set fire. The ship burned. It burned likefat. Then the Clatsops gathered the iron, the copper, and the brass.Then were the Clatsops rich."
One of these men was Ko-na-pe. He and his companio
n were held asslaves. Ko-na-pe was a worker in iron and could fashion knives andhatchets. From that time the Clatsops had knives. He was too great tobe held as a slave, so the Clatsops gave him and his friend theirliberty. They built a cabin at a place now known as New Astoria, butthe Indians called it "Ko-na-pe," and it was known by that name longafter the country was settled by the whites.
February had now arrived. For weeks every man not a hunter stood overthe kettles with his deer-skin sleeves rolled up, working away atelkskins, rubbing, dipping, and wringing. Then again they went backinto the suds for another rubbing and working, and then the beautifulskin, hung up to smoke and dry, came out soft and pliable.
Shields, the skilful, cut out the garments with a butcher knife, andall set to work with awls for needles and deer sinews for thread.
For weeks this leather-dressing and sewing had been going on, someusing the handy little "housewives" given by Dolly Madison and theladies of the White House, until Captain Lewis records, "the men arebetter fitted with clothing and moccasins than they have been sincestarting on this voyage."
Captain Lewis and Captain Clark had each a large coat finished of theskin of the "tiger cat," of which it "took seven robes to make acoat."
With beads and old razors, Captain Lewis bought high-crowned Chinookhats, of white cedar-bark and bear-grass, woven European fashion bythe nimble fingers of the Clatsop girls, fine as Leghorn andwater-tight.
Patrick Gass counted up the moccasins and found three hundred andfifty-eight pairs, besides a good stock of dressed elkskins for tentsand bedding. "And I compute 131 elk and 20 deer shot in thisneighbourhood during the winter," he added.
But now the elk were going to the mountains, game was practicallyunobtainable. Now and then Drouillard snared a fine fat beaver or anotter in his traps; sometimes the Indians came over with sturgeon,fresh anchovies, or a bag of wapato, but even this supply wasprecarious and uncertain.
February 11, Captain Clark completed a map of the country, includingrivers and mountains from Fort Mandan to Clatsop, dotting incross-cuts for the home journey, the feat of a born geographer.
February 21 the saltmakers returned, with twelve gallons of saltsealed up to last to the _cache_ on the Jefferson.
While Shields refitted the guns, others opened and examined theprecious powder. Thirty-five canisters remained, and yet, banged asthey had been over many a mountain pass, and sunk in many a stream,all but five were found intact as when they were sealed at Pittsburg.Three were bruised and cracked, one had been pierced by a nail, onehad not been properly sealed, but by care the men could dry them outand save the whole.
The greatest necessity now was a boat. A long, slim Chinook canoe madeout of a single tree of fir or cedar was beyond price. Preliminarydickers were tried with Chinooks and Clatsops. Finally Drouillard wentup to Cathlamet.
Of all the trinkets that Drouillard could muster, nothing short ofCaptain Lewis's laced uniform coat could induce Queen Sally's peopleto part with a treasured canoe. And here it was. Misfortune had becomea joke.
"Well, now, the United States owes me a coat," laughed Lewis, as hefound his last civilised garment gone to the savages.
"Six blue robes, one of scarlet, five made out of the old UnitedStates' flag that had floated over many a council, a few old clothes,Clark's uniform coat and hat and a few little trinkets that might betied in a couple of handkerchiefs," this was the reserve fund to carrythem two thousand miles to St. Louis.
But each stout-hearted explorer had his gun and plenty of powder--thatwas wealth.
"Now, in case we never reach the United States," said Lewis, "whatthen?"
"We must leave a Memorial," answered Clark. And so the Captainsprepared this document:
_"The object of this list is, that through the medium of some civilised person, who may see the same, it may be made known to the world, that the party consisting of the persons whose names are hereunto annexed, and who were sent out by the Government of the United States to explore the interior of the continent of North America, did penetrate the same by the way of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific ocean, where they arrived on the 14th day of November, 1805, and departed the 23d day of March, 1806, on their return to the United States by the same route by which they had come out."_
To this document every man signed his name, and copies were given tothe various chiefs. One was posted at Fort Clatsop to be given to anytrader that might arrive in the river, and thus, in case of theirdeath, some account of their exploration might be saved to the world.On the back of some of the papers Clark sketched the route.
At last only one day's food remained. Necessity compelled removal. Invain their eyes were strained toward the sea. Never were Lewis andClark destined to see a summer day on the Columbia, when sails ofships flapped listlessly against the masts, and vessels heavedreluctantly on the sluggish waters, rolling in long swells on Clatsopbeach.
On Sunday, March 23, 1806, the boats were loaded and all was ready.Chief Coboway came over at noon to bid them good bye.
In gratitude for many favours during the past winter, Lewis and Clarkpresented their houses and furniture to the kind-hearted old chief.
Chief Coboway made Fort Clatsop his winter home during the remainderof his life. Years passed. The stockade fell down, young trees grew upthrough the cabins, but the spring is there still, gushing forth itswaters, cool as in the adventurous days of one hundred years ago.