348 The Winning of the West 



twenty-seven men there were seven soldiers and 

 nine voyageurs who started only to go to the Man- 

 dan villages on the Missouri, where the party in- 

 tended to spend the first winter. They embarked in 

 three large boats, abundantly supplied with arms, 

 powder, and lead, clothing, gifts for the Indians, 

 and provisions. 



The starting point was St. Louis, which had only 

 just been surrendered to the United States Govern- 

 ment by the Spaniards, without any French inter- 

 mediaries. The explorers pushed off in May, 1804, 

 and soon began stemming the strong current of the 

 muddy Missouri, to whose unknown sources they in- 

 tended to ascend. For two or three weeks they oc- 

 casionally passed farms and hamlets. The most 

 important of the little towns was St. Charles, where 

 the people were all Creoles; the explorers in their 

 journal commented upon the good temper and vi- 

 vacity of these habitants, but dwelt on the shiftless- 

 ness they displayed and their readiness to sink back 

 toward savagery, although they were brave and 

 hardy enough. The next most considerable town 

 was peopled mainly by Americans, who had already 

 begun to make numerous settlements in the new 

 land. The last squalid little village they passed 

 claimed as one of its occasional residents old Daniel 

 Boone himself. 



After leaving the final straggling log cabins of 

 the settled country, the explorers, with sails and pad- 

 dles, made their way through what is now the State 

 of Missouri. They lived well, for their hunters 



