k. The journal
says:--

"They then continued through the low bottom, along the main stream, near
the foot of the mountains on their right. For the first five miles, the
valley continues toward the southwest, being from two to three miles in
width; then the main stream, which had received two small branches from
the left in the valley, turned abruptly to the west through a narrow
bottom between the mountains. The road was still plain, and, as it
led them directly on toward the mountain, the stream gradually became
smaller, till, after going two miles, it had so greatly diminished in
width that one of the men, in a fit of enthusiasm, with one foot on
each side of the river, thanked God that he had lived to bestride the
Missouri. As they went along their hopes of soon seeing the Columbia
(that is, the Pacific watershed) arose almost to painful anxiety, when
after four miles from the last abrupt turn of the river (which turn
had been to the west), they reached a small gap formed by the high
mountains, which recede on each side, leaving room for the Indian road.
From the foot of one of the lowest of these mountains, which rises with
a gentle ascent of about half a mile, issues the remotest water of the
Missouri.

"They had now reached the hidden sources of that river, which had never
yet been seen by civilized man. As they quenched their thirst at the
chaste and icy fountain--as they sat down by the brink of that little
rivulet, which yielded its distant and modest tribute to the parent
ocean--they felt themselves rewarded for all their labors and all their
difficulties.

"They left reluctantly this interesting spot, and, pursuing the Indian
road through the interval of the hills, arrived at the top of a ridge,
from which they saw high mountains, partially covered with snow, still
to the west of them.

"The ridge on which they stood formed the dividing line between the
waters of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. They followed a descent
much steeper than that on the eastern side, and at the distance of
three-quarters of a mile reached a handsome, bold creek of cold, clear
water running to the westward. They stopped to taste, for the first
time, the waters of the Columbia; and, after a few minutes, followed the
road across steep hills and low hollows, when they came to a spring on
the side of a mountain. Here they found a sufficient quantity of dry
willow-brush for fuel, and therefore halted for the night; and, having
kil