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The Journals
of Lewis and Clark: Dates November 17, 1805 - November
20, 1805
The following
excerpts are taken from entries of the Journals of Lewis
and Clark. Dates: November 17, 1805 - November 20, 1805
November
17, 1805
Sunday 17. A fair cool morning and easterly wind. The
tide rises at this place eight feet six inches in height,
and rolls over the beach in great waves.
About one o'clock Captain Lewis returned, after having
coasted down Haley's bay to cape Disappointment, and
some distance to the north along the sea coast. He was
followed by several Chinnooks, among whom were the principal
chief and his family. They made us a present of a boiled
root, very much like the common liquorice in taste and
size, and called culwhamo: in return we gave double
the value of their present, and now learnt the danger
of accepting any thing from them, since no return, even
if ten times the value of their gift, can satisfy them.
We were chiefly occupied in hunting, and were able to
procure three deer, four brant and two ducks, and also
saw some signs of elk. Captain Clarke now prepared for
an excursion down the bay, and accordingly started,
November
18, 1805
Monday 18,
at daylight, accompanied by eleven men. He proceeded
along the beach one mile to a point of rocks about forty
feet high, where the hills retire, leaving a wide beach,
and a number of ponds covered with water-fowl, between
which and the mountain is a narrow bottom of alder and
small balsam trees. Seven miles from the rocks is the
entrance of a creek, or rather drain from the ponds
and hills, where is a cabin of Chinnooks. The cabin
contained some children, and four women, one of whom
was in a most miserable state, covered with ulcers,
proceeding as we imagine, from the venereal disease,
with which several of the Chinnooks we have seen appear
to be afflicted. We were taken across in a canoe by
two squaws, to each of whom we gave a fishhook, and
then coasting along the bay, passed at two miles the
low bluff of a small hill, below which are the ruins
of some old huts, and close to it the remains of a whale.
The country is low, open and marshy; interspersed with
some high pine and a thick undergrowth. Five miles from
the creek, we came to a stream forty yards wide at low
water, which we called Chinnook river. The hills up
this river and towards the bay are not high, but very
thickly covered with large pine of several species:
in many places pine trees, three or four feet in thickness,
are seen growing on the bodies of large trees, which
though fallen and covered with moss, were in part sound.
Here we dined on some brant and plover, killed as we
came along, and after crossing in a boat lying in the
sand near some old houses, proceeded along a bluff of
yellow clay and soft stone to a little bay or harbor,
into which a drain from some ponds empties: at this
harbor the land is low, but as we went on it rose to
hills of eighty or ninety feet above the water. At the
distance of one mile is a second bay, and a mile beyond
it, a small rocky island in a deep bend, which seems
to afford a very good harbor, and where the natives
inform us European vessels anchor for the purpose of
trading. We went on round another bay, in which is a
second small island of rocks, and crossed a small stream,
which rises in a pond near the sea coast, and after
running through a low isthmus empties into the bay.
This narrow low ground, about two or three hundred yards
wide, separates from the main hills a kind of peninsula,
the extremity of which is two miles from the anchoring
place; and this spot, which was called cape Disappointment,
is an elevated, circular knob, rising with a steep ascent
one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty feet
above the water, formed like the whole shore of the
bay, as well as of the seacoast, and covered with thick
timber on the inner side, but open and grassy in the
exposure next the sea. From this cape a high point of
land bears south 20° west, about twenty-five miles distant.
In the range between these two eminences, is the opposite
point of the bay, a very low ground, which has been
variously called cape Rond by Lapeyrouse, and point
Adams by Vancouver. The water for a great distance off
the mouth of the river, appears very shallow, and within
the mouth nearest to point Adams, is a large sandbar,
almost covered at high tide. We could not ascertain
the direction of the deepest channel, for the waves
break with tremendous force the whole distance across
the bay, but the Indians point nearer to the opposite
side as the best passage. After remaining for some time
on this elevation, we descended across the low isthmus,
and reached the ocean at the foot of a high hill, about
a mile in circumference, and projecting into the sea.
We crossed this hill, which is open and has a growth
of high coarse grass, and encamped on the north side
of it, having made nineteen miles. Besides the pounded
fish and brant, we had for supper a flounder, which
we picked up on the beach.
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