Now he was more anxious for it than ever. And
at length he succeeded in getting an expedition sent out.
The leaders of this expedition were two young officers, Captain
Merriwether Lewis and William Clark. From their names the expedition
is usually known as the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
They made very careful preparations and in 1804 they set out with
about twenty-seven men to explore the river Missouri.
Some years before this a United States Captain, Robert Grey, had
discovered a great river in the west coast of America and called
it the Columbia, after the name of his ship. And now what Lewis
and Clark had set out to do was to reach that river from the east.
It is impossible to tell here of all their thrilling adventures,
for they would fill a whole book. I can only give you the merest
outline. But some day you will no doubt read the whole story as
Lewis and Clark tell it themselves.
The expedition started from the mouth of the Missouri, and at first
the explorers passed by the scattered farms and little villages
where white men lived. But these were the farthest outposts of
civilisation; soon they were left behind, and the little band of
white men were in a land inhabited only by Redskins. The current
was so swift and the wind so often in the wrong direction that sails
were almost useless, and the boats were rowed, punted and towed
upstream with a great deal of hard labour.
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