Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/11

Rh of this magnificent temple of God. Whether or not the sculptor who is to fashion the granite column marking this spot is yet born I know not; but sooner or later a monument will arise in these rugged regions and to it will come the remotest generations to do homage to the memory of Meriwether Lewis.

August 20, the reunited party was encamped several miles below the confluence of the Lemhi and Salmon rivers, probably in the same cove occupied by Bonneville 27 years later, when Captain Clark conferred upon the stream, here 300 feet in width, the name Lewis's river and noted in the journal the information that Captain Lewis was the first white man to visit its waters. During the early days when the country was occupied by mountain men it seems that the principal rivers, with a few exceptions, were called after the tribes which inhabited the adjacent country. Thus the Cowlitz river derived its name, as did the Yakima, the Walla Walla, the Palouse, the Okanogan, and the Spokane. The North-West Company designated what is now southern Idaho as the Snake country and, in time, the name Lewis faded away under the poetic brilliancy of that charming name "Snake." When Jason Lee arrived at Fort Hall he wrote in his journal that he had "camped about noon on the bank of the Snake river as called by the mountain men but on the map Lewis Fork."

The Lewis and Clark journals contain the following:

"They (the Snakes) are the poorest and most miserable nation I ever beheld."

From Alexander Ross we learn how the name originated, as follows:

"It arose from the characteristics of these Indians in quickly concealing themselves when once discovered. They seem to glide away in the grass, sage brush and rocks and disappear with all the subtlety of a serpent."

Father DeSmet gives this version relative to the origin of the name:

"They are called Snakes because in their poverty they are reduced like reptiles to the condition of digging in the ground and seeking nourishment from roots."

Of Mr. Lewis, President Jefferson said: