The initial CLISP working directory normally is the same as the current working directory of the terminal or shell that CLISP had been started from.
You can find out your current working directory from within CLISP by typing:
[1]> (cd)
=> #p"name-of-current-working-directory"
->
http://clisp.cons.org/impnotes.html#cd
->
http://clisp.cons.org/impnotes.html#default-dir
You can also customize CUSTOM:*LOAD-PATHS* to tell CLISP where to search for Lisp files you want to be loaded:
->
http://clisp.cons.org/impnotes.html#load-paths
Warning: the docs at the CLISP home page are a single, rather huge HTML file, I usually download the 'clisp-x.xx-impnotes.zip' from:
->
http://sourceforge.net/projects/clisp/files/
On the SourceForge page, under 'All Files', open the yellow folder of your CLISP version, and there you'll find it. The zip-file contains a reasonably formatted HTML version of the CLISP impnotes for offline reading.
P.S.: CLISP 2.48 is already obsolete, the current CLISP version is 2.49...