Vocabulary
- anxious
- cheerful
- view
- breaking
- distinctly
- shores
TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN.

The party went down the Columbia River in canoes.
It was a hard trip.
It rained all the time.
Each day the men were wet to the skin.
They had to carry their goods around some rapids.
They could not be very cheerful.
One day it stopped raining for a little time.
The low clouds went away.
The party saw that the river was very wide.
They rowed on.
Then they saw the great ocean lying in the sun.
They became very happy.
They cheered and laughed and sang.
They rowed on very fast.
Captain Lewis wrote in his book:
“Ocean in view! O! the joy! We are in VIEW of the Ocean, this great Pacific Ocean, which we have been so long anxious to see. The noise made by the waves breaking on the rocky shores may be heard distinctly.”
Vocabulary
- half
- forgot
- journey
- troubles
THE PACIFIC OCEAN.
The party saw that they had come to the end of their journey.
They had come 4,134 miles from the mouth of the Missouri River.
It had taken them a year and a half to come.
But now they forgot their troubles.
They forgot the times they had been hungry.
They forgot their cut feet and their black and blue backs.
They forgot the bears and the snakes and the mosquitoes.
They saw the Pacific Ocean before them.
They sang because they were the first white men to make this journey.
They did not care for the troubles going back.
They knew that they could go home faster than they had come.
And they sang together, “The Ocean! The Ocean! O joy! O joy!”

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