proceeded to Pittsburg, where other articles had been ordered to be
provided for him. The men too were to be selected from the military
stations on the Ohio. Delays of preparation, difficulties of navigation
down the Ohio, and other untoward obstructions, retarded his arrival at
Cahokia until the season was so far advanced as to render it prudent to
suspend his entering the Missouri before the ice should break up in the
succeeding spring.

From this time his journal, now published, will give the history of his
journey to and from the Pacific ocean, until his return to St. Louis on
the twenty-third of September, 1806. Never did a similar event excite
more joy through the United States. The humblest of its citizens had
taken a lively interest in the issue of this journey, and looked forward
with impatience for the information it would furnish. Their anxieties
too for the safety of the corps had been kept in a state of excitement
by lugubrious rumours, circulated from time to time on uncertain
authorities, and uncontradicted by letters, or other direct information,
from the time they had left the Mandan towns, on their ascent up the
river in April of the preceding year, 1805, until their actual return to
St. Louis.

It was the middle of February, 1807, before captain Lewis, with his
companion captain Clarke, reached the city of Washington, where congress
was then in session. That body granted to the two chiefs and their
followers the donation of lands which they had been encouraged to expect
in reward of their toil and dangers. Captain Lewis was soon after
appointed governor of Louisiana, and captain Clarke a general of its
militia, and agent of the United States for Indian affairs in that
department.