The Value of Mules and Horses

On February 15th, 1806, Meriwether Lewis wrote:

The horse is confined principally to the nations inhabiting the great plains of Columbia extending from Latitude 400 to 500 N. and occuping the tract of country lying between the rocky mountains and a range of Mountains which pass the columbia river about the great falls or from Longitude 116 to 121 West. in this extesive tract of principally untimbered country so far as we have leant the following nations reside the Sosone or snake Indians, the Chopunnish, sokulks, Cutssahnims, Chymnapums, Ehelutes, Eneshuh & Chilluckkittequaws. all of whom enjoy the bennefit of that docile, generous and valuable anamal the horse, and all of them except the three last have immence numbers of them. Their horses appear to be of an excellent race; they are lofty eligantly formed active and durable; in short many of them look like the fine English coarsers and would make a figure in any country. some of those horses are pided [pied] with large spots of white irregularly scattered and intermixed with the black brown bey or some other dark colour, but much the larger portion are of an uniform colour with stars snips and white feet, or in this rispect marked much like our best blooded horses in virginia, which they resemble as well in fleetness and bottom as in form and colours, the natives suffer them to run at large in the plains, the grass of which furnishes them with their only subsistence their masters taking no trouble to lay in a winters store for them, but they even keep fat if not much used on the dry grass of the plains during the winter, no rain scarcely ever falls in these plains and the grass is short and but thin. The natives except those near the R. mont appear to take no pains in scelecting their male horses from which they breed, in short those of that discription which I have noticed appeared much the most indifferent, whether the horse was orrigeonally a native of this country or not it is out of my power to determine as we can not understand the language of the natives sufficiently to ask the question, at all events the country and climate appears well adapted to this anamal. horses are said to be found wild in many parts of this extensive plain country. the several tribes of Sosones who reside towards Mexico on the waters of Clark's Multnomah river or particularly one of them called Shá-bo-bo-ah have also a great number of mules, which among the Indians I find are much more highly prized than horses. an eligant horse may be purchased of the natives in this country for a lew peads [few beads] or other paltry trinkets which in the U' States would not cost more than one or two dollars. This abundance and cheapness of horses will be extremely advantageous to those who may hereafter attemt the fir trade to the East Indies by way of the Columbia river and the Pacific Ocean. - the mules in the possession of the Indians are principally stolen from the Spaniards of Mexeco; they appear to be large and fine such as we have seen. Among the Sosones of the upper part of the S. E. fork of the Columbia we saw several horses with spanish brands on them which we supposed had been stolen from the inhabitants of Mexeco. (Lewis, from Moulton V.6, 313-4)

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