[First Across the Continent by Noah Brooks]@TWC D-Link bookFirst Across the Continent CHAPTER XXII -- Camping with the Nez Perces 3/15
They carried with them for this purpose a small collection of awls, knitting-pins, and armbands, with which they obtained several bushels of the root of cows, and some bread of the same material.
They were followed, too, by a train of invalids from the village, who came to ask for our assistance.
The men were generally afflicted with sore eyes; but the women had besides this a variety of other disorders, chiefly rheumatic, a violent pain and weakness in the loins, which is a common complaint among them; one of them seemed much dejected, and as we thought, from the account of her disease, hysterical.
We gave her thirty drops of laudanum, and after administering eye-water, rubbing the rheumatic patients with volatile liniment, and giving cathartics to others, they all thought themselves much relieved and returned highly satisfied to the village.
We were fortunate enough to retake one of the horses on which we (Captain Lewis) had crossed the Rocky Mountains in the autumn, and which had become almost wild since that time." A day or two later, the journal has this significant entry: "On parcelling out the stores, the stock of each man was found to be only one awl, and one knitting-pin, half an ounce of vermilion, two needles, a few skeins of thread, and about a yard of ribbon--a slender means of bartering for our subsistence; but the men have been so much accustomed to privations that now neither the want of meat nor the scanty funds of the party excites the least anxiety among them." To add to their discomfort, there was a great deal of sickness in the camp, owing to the low diet of the men.
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