knowing that there was now no time to be lost I set forward in the
rain, most of the gentlemen continued with me, we arrived at half after
six and joined Capt Clark, found the party in good health and sperits.
suped this evening with Monsr. Charles Tayong a Spanish Ensign & late
Commandant of St. Charles at an early hour I retired to rest on board
the barge- St. Charles is situated on the North bank of the Missouri 21
Miles above it's junction with the Mississippi, and about the same
distance N. W. from St. Louis; it is bisected by one principal street
about a mile in length runing nearly parrallel with the river, the
plain on which it stands-is narrow tho sufficiently elivated to secure
it against the annual inundations of the river, which usually happen in
the month of June, and in the rear it is terminated by a range of small
hills, hence the appellation of petit Cote, a name by which this vilage
is better known to the French inhabitants of the Illinois than that of
St. Charles. The Vilage contains a Chappel, one hundred dwelling
houses, and about 450 inhabitants; their houses are generally small and
but illy constructed; a great majority of the inhabitants are miserably
pour, illiterate and when at home excessively lazy, tho they are polite
hospitable and by no means deficient in point of natural genious, they
live in a perfect state of harmony among each other; and plase as
implicit confidence in the doctrines of their speritual pastor, the
Roman Catholic priest, as they yeald passive obedience to the will of
their temporal master the commandant. a small garden of vegetables is
the usual extent of their cultivation, and this is commonly imposed on
the old men and boys; the men in the vigor of life consider the
cultivation of the earth a degrading occupation, and in order to gain
the necessary subsistence for themselves and families, either undertake
hunting voyages on their own account, or engage themselves as hirelings
to such persons as possess sufficient capital to extend their traffic
to the natives of the interior parts of the country; on those voyages