By October the company was reduced to a diet of dog; but the last Divide
had been crossed. Horses were left with an Indian chief of the
Flatheads, and the explorers glided down the Clearwater, leading to the
Columbia, in five canoes and one pilot boat. Great was the joy in camp
on November 8, 1805; for the boats had passed the last _portage_ of the
Columbia. When heavy fog rose, there burst on the eager gaze of the
_voyageurs_ the shining expanse of the Pacific. The shouts of the
jubilant _voyageurs_ mingled with the roar of ocean breakers. Like
Alexander Mackenzie of the far North a decade before, Lewis and Clark had
reached the long-sought Western Sea. They had been first up the
Missouri, first across the middle Rockies, and first down the Columbia to
the Pacific.
Seven huts, known as Fort Clatsop, were knocked up on the south side of
the Columbia's harbor for winter quarters; and a wretched winter the
little fort spent, beleaguered not by hostiles, but by such inclement
damp that all the men were ill before spring and their very leather suits
rotted from their backs. Many a time, coasting the sea, were they
benighted. Spreading mats on the sand, they slept in the drenching rain.
Unused to ocean waters, the inland voyageurs became deadly seasick.
Once, when all were encamped on the shore, an enormous tidal wave broke
over the camp with a smashing of log-drift that almost crushed the boats.
Nez Perces and Flatheads had assisted the white men after the Snake
guides had turned back.
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