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 THE UPPER MISSOURI.

CHAPTER X.

PIKE'S VOYAGE UP THE MISSISSIPPI, AND DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCE OF THE ARKANSAS; THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCES OF THE MISSOURI BY LEWIS AND CLARKE, AND THEIR VOYAGE DOWN THE COLUMBIA TO THE PACIFIC.

Thus far our heroes have, with few exceptions, been pioneers rather of Christianity, emigration or commerce, than of discovery properly so called. Early colonization in America was not, as in Africa, preceded by scientific exploration. We have no trans-Atlantic Park or Bruce, no Lander Oudney, or Clapperton; the white martyrs who baptized the soil of the New World with their blood fell, not in the cause of geography, but in that of their homes or their religion. Only in the extreme North have we any romance in American travel which can at all compare with that so inseparably connected with the winning of each of the secrets of that sister continent so aptly named the Dark.