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I had eat nothing yesterday except one scant meal of the flour and berries except the dryed cakes of berries which did not appear to satisfy my appetite as they appeared to do those of my Indian friends.
I now explained to them the objects of our journey &c. all the women and children of the camp were shortly collected about the lodge to indulge themselves with looking at us, we being the first white persons they had ever seen. after the cerimony of the pipe was over I distributed the remainder of the small articles I had brought with me among the women and children. by this time it was late in the evening and we had not taisted any food since the evening before. the Chief informed us that they had nothing but berries to eat and gave us some cakes of serviceberries and Choke cherries which had been dryed in the sun; of these I made a hearty meal, and then walked to the river, which I found about 40 yards wide very rapid clear and about 3 feet deep. the banks low and abrupt as those of the upper part of the Missouri, and the bed formed of loose stones and gravel.
I landed on a Sand bar from the South Point intending to form a Camp at this place and Continue untill Capt Lewis Should arive. and killed two Buck Elks and a Deer the best of their flesh & fat I had Saved. had all the dryed meat & fat put out to Sun and continued at this place untill late in the evening finding that there were no buffalow or fresh Sign I deturmined to proceed on accordingly Set out at 4 P. M and proceeded on but a fiew miles eeir I saw a Bear of the white Species walking on a Sand bear.
I gave him a few dryed squashes which we had brought from the Mandans he had them boiled and declared them to be the best thing he had ever tasted except sugar, a small lump of which it seems his sister Sah-cah-gar Wea had given him. late in the evening I made the men form a bush drag, and with it in about 2 hours they caught 528 very good fish, most of them large trout. among them I now for the first time saw ten or a douzen of a whte speceis of trout. they are of a silvery colour except on the back and head, where they are of a bluish cast. the scales are much larger than the speckled trout, but in their form position of their fins teeth mouth &c they are precisely like them they are not generally quite as large but equally well flavored.
Our men are now very much engaged in dressing Elk and Deer skins for mockersons and cloathing. the deer are extreemly scarce in this neighbourhood, some are to be found near the praries and open grounds along the coast. this evening we heard seven guns in quick succession after each other, they appeared to be on the Creek to the South of us and several miles distant; I expect that the hunters Drewyer and Collins have fallen in with a gang of Elk. some marrow bones and a little fresh meat would be exceptable; I have been living for two days past on poor dryed Elk, or jurk as the hunters term it.
Whiles this is doing, put some of your first plain broth upon some dryed bread to mittonner well. Let there be no more broth, then just to do that. None to swim thin over. When you will serve the potage in, pour the white liquor upon the swelled and gellied-bread, and let them stew together a little upon the Coals.
A fine morning, set out at an early hour; the drift wood begins to come down in consequence of the river's rising; the water is somewhat clearer than usual, a circumstance I did not expect on it's rise. at 11 A.M. the wind became so hard that we were compelled to ly by for several hours, one of the small canoes by the bad management of the steersman filled with water and had very nearly sunk; we unloaded her and dryed the baggage; at one we proceed on the wind having in some measure abated. the country we passed today on the North side of the river is one of the most beautifull plains we have yet seen, it rises gradually from the river bottom to the hight of 50 or 60 feet, then becoming level as a bowling green. extends back as far as the eye can reach; on the S. side the river hills are more broken and much higher tho some little destance back the country becomes level and fertile. no appearance of birnt hills coal or pumicestone, that of salts still continue. vegitation appears to have advanced very little since the 28th Ulto. we continue to see a great number of bald Eagles, I presume they must feed on the carcases of dead anamals, for I see no fishing hawks to supply them with their favorite food. the water of the river is so terbid that no bird wich feeds exclusively on fish can subsist on it; from it's mouth to this place I have neither seen the blue crested fisher nor a fishing hawk. this day we killed 3 Buffaloe 1 Elk & 8 beaver; two of the Buffaloe killed by Capt Clark near our encampment of this evening wer in good order dressed them and saved the meat, the Elk I killed this morning, thought it fat, but on examineation found it so lean that we took the tongue marrowbones and Skin only.
I set out early and walked down the South West side of the river and sent Shannon down the opposite side to bring the canoe over to me and put me across the Missouri; having landed on the Lard. side of the Missouri I sent Shannon back with the canoe to ascend the Medicine river as far as his camp to meet J. Fields and bring the dryed meat at that place to the camp at the white bear Islands which accomplished and arrived with Fields this evening. the party also arrived this evening with two canoes from the lower camp. they were wet and fatiegued, gave them a dram.
The frute is a berry resembling the Blackberry in every respect and is eaten when ripe and much esteemed by the nativs but is not dryed for winters Consumption. in the Countrey about the enterance of the quick Sand rivers I first discovered this bryor, it grows So abundantly in the furtile Vally of Columbia and on the Islands in that part of the river, that the Countrey near the river is almost impenitrable in maney places.
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