Lewis and Clark / Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

ed appalling. The primary instruction was to blaze a path, more than four thousand miles long, through an unstudied wilderness. It was conceived that this could best be done by fo

ls, far to the west, that might have been the Sierra Nevadas; further than that there was nothing but a broad interior plain, seamed with rivers. Practically nothing was known of the difficulties that would be encountered. White men had ventured for a little way up the Missouri in earlier years, to carry on a desultory fur-trade wi

ustoms; their ideas and practice of commerce, and the possibility of extending among them the influences of civilization,-in short, every circumstance was to be noted which might render future relations with these people intelligent. Particular attention was to be given to the state of feeling toward the whites, in those tribes which had had experience with the traders. Should the expedition succeed in reaching the Pacific, the conditions of trade upon the coast were to form a subject of special inquiry. Along the route full observations were directed to be made concerning the fa

d 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, arr

erprise in the face of opposition; and he was also told that should he succeed in getting through to the Pacific, he might choose his own means for getting back again,-shipping by way of Cape Horn or the Cape

, authorizing you to draw on the executive of the United States, or any of its officers, in any part of the world in which drafts can be disposed of, and to apply with our recommendations to

ironical. A letter of credit directed to the M

, hunters, trappers, fishermen, scouts, woodcutters, boatbuilders, carpenters, priests, and doctors. From the time they left St. Louis, in May, 1804, until they returned to that place, in September, 1806, the men w

dition was based upon an estimate made by Captain Lewis hims

f the sum necessary to carry in

al Instrum

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transport

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p the various articles

nters, guides and

of the party from Nashville to the last

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journey of discovery, more than eight thousand miles in length, wit

the party was not assembled until December. The officers wished to establish winter quarters at the last white settlement on the Missouri, a few miles above St. Louis; but the Spanish governor of the territory had not yet learned of the change in ownership, and would not suffer them to pr