m raised several feet above the
ground on pillars. The more pretentious mansions are surrounded by broad
verandas and fine gardens, and scattered here and there among the houses
of the better class are those of the poor people.

The streets are straight and fairly wide, but dirty and ill-kept. The
sidewalks are of wood, and at night we need to take our steps carefully,
for only a few dim lights break the darkness. Beyond the walls of the city
we see suburbs already springing up.

Three-fourths of the inhabitants are creoles--that is, natives of French
and Spanish descent, who speak in the French tongue. We do not understand
them any more than if we were in a really foreign city. They seem a
handsome, well-knit race. But they are idle and lacking in ambition, and
for that reason are being crowded out of business by the active, thrifty
American merchants, to whom, we observe, they are not quite friendly.

Such was the New Orleans of 1803, a human oasis in a waste of forest,
which made up the greater part of the new territory. There were, to be
sure, in this trackless wilderness a few French villages near the mouth of
the Missouri River. Traders from the British camps in the north had found
their way as far south as these villages, but the great prairies had not
been explored, and the Rocky Mountains were yet unknown.

LEWIS AND CLARK'S EXPEDITION

Before the purchase was made Jefferson had planned an expedition to
explore this region, and Congress had voted money to carry out his plan.
Two officers of the United States army, Captain Meriwether Lewis and
Captain William Clark, brother of George Rogers Clark, were put in command
of the expedition.

They were to ascend the Missouri River to its head and then find the
nearest waterway to the Pacific coast. They were directed also to draw
maps of the region and to report on the nature of the country and the
people, plants, animals, and other matters of interest in the new lands.

[Illustration: Meriwether Lewis.]

In May, 1804, the little company of forty-five men left St. Louis and
started up the Missouri River, passing the scattered settlements of French
creoles. After eleven days they reached the home of Daniel Boone, the last
settlement they passed on the Missouri. Leaving that, they found no more
white settlers and very few Indians. But the woods were alive with game,
so there was no lack of food.

[Illustration: William Clark.]

Late in October they arrived