ity of the lower falls, it combined all the regular elegancies
which the fancy of a painter would select to form a beautiful waterfall.
The eye had scarcely been regaled with this charming prospect, when at
the distance of half a mile Captain Lewis observed another of a similar
kind. To this he immediately hastened, and found a cascade stretching
across the whole river for a quarter of a mile, with a descent of
fourteen feet, though the perpendicular pitch was only six feet. This,
too, in any other neighborhood, would have been an object of great
magnificence; but after what he had just seen, it became of secondary
interest. His curiosity being, however, awakened, he determined to go
on, even should night overtake him, to the head of the falls.

"He therefore pursued the southwest course of the river, which was one
constant succession of rapids and small cascades, at every one of which
the bluffs grew lower, or the bed of the river became more on a level
with the plains. At the distance of two and one-half miles he arrived
at another cataract, of twenty-six feet. The river is here six hundred
yards wide, but the descent is not immediately perpendicular, though
the river falls generally with a regular and smooth sheet; for about
one-third of the descent a rock protrudes to a small distance, receives
the water in its passage, and gives it a curve. On the south side is a
beautiful plain, a few feet above the level of the falls; on the north,
the country is more broken, and there is a hill not far from the river.
Just below the falls is a little island in the middle of the river, well
covered with timber. Here on a cottonwood tree an eagle had fixed her
nest, and seemed the undisputed mistress of a spot, to contest whose
dominion neither man nor beast would venture across the gulfs that
surround it, and which is further secured by the mist rising from
the falls. This solitary bird could not escape the observation of the
Indians, who made the eagle's nest a part of their description of the
falls, which now proves to be correct in almost every particular, except
that they did not do justice to the height.

"Just above this is a cascade of about five feet, beyond which, as
far as could be discerned, the velocity of the water seemed to abate.
Captain Lewis now ascended the hill which was behind him, and saw from
its top a delightful plain, extending from the river to the base of the
Snowy (Rocky) Mountains to the south and sout