CHAPTER IX
Jefferson's Hobby—Two Noblemen—An Indefinite Transaction—Expedition to the Wilderness—Fort Mandan—The Roche Jaune and the First View of the Great Range—The Long-Lost Sister—Depths of the Unknown—Starvation on the Trail—Music of the Breakers—Fort Clatsop—The Return—Medicine Men Again—Two Natives Shot—Premature Death of the Captain.
The mighty Wilderness, which like a tennis-ball had been tossed back and forth between the European kings, was of particular interest to one of the foremost statesmen of the new Republic, Thomas Jefferson, who pondered on its mysteries and on ways of fathoming their fascinating depths. As early as 1792 he had proposed to the American Philosophical Society the raising of a subscription to send a small party to the Pacific by way of the Missouri, across the "Stony Mountains" and by the nearest river to the sea. A very young man, Meriwether Lewis by name, eighteen at the time, asked for the commission, but it was given to a French botanist, Andre Michaux, who was also eager to see the Far West, and who volunteered his services. The execution of the plan was frustrated by the French Minister, who, as Michaux was in the employ of the French Government, directed his path another way.
When Jefferson was elected President of the United States, in 1801, his mind, prepared therefore, turned more intently toward the problematical region bordering the American domain on the west. He now had for private secretary the same Meriwether Lewis who had desired to search the Western wilds nine years earlier. Lewis had risen to captain[62] in the army and had not lost interest in the exploration he had been unable to undertake before, so when Jefferson in 1803 sent a confidential message to Congress dealing with the subject of trading-posts for the natives of the sparsely settled country and beyond, and suggested an exploring expedition across the Wilderness, Lewis knew all about it, and applied immediately for the leadership. He was not yet twenty-nine, but his character was well formed. Jefferson had learned it thoroughly in the two years he had filled the position of secretary and says he was
"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[63]; 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."
Congress approving the plan, Lewis was appointed chief, and no better man for the undertaking could have been found.[64]