near the river above the
Council-bluff. After passing a number of sandbars we reached a willow
island at the distance of twenty-two and a half miles, which we were
enabled to do with our oars and a wind from the S.W. and encamped on the
north side.

August 11. After a violent wind from the N.W. attended with rain, we
sailed along the right of the island. At nearly five miles, we halted on
the south side for the purpose of examining a spot where one of the
great chiefs of the Mahas named Blackbird, who died about four years ago
of the smallpox, was buried. A hill of yellow soft sandstone rises from
the river in bluffs of various heights, till it ends in a knoll about
three hundred feet above the water; on the top of this a mound, of
twelve feet diameter at the base and six feet high, is raised over the
body of the deceased king; a pole of about eight feet high is fixed in
the centre; on which we placed a white flag, bordered with red, blue,
and white. The Blackbird seems to have been a personage of great
consideration; for ever since his death he is supplied with provisions,
from time to time, by the superstitious regard of the Mahas. We
descended to the river and passed a small creek on the south, called, by
the Mahas, Waucandipeeche, (Great Spirit is bad.) Near this creek and
the adjoining hills the Mahas had a village, and lost four hundred of
their nation by the dreadful malady which destroyed the Blackbird. The
meridian altitude made the latitude 42 degrees 1' 3-8/10" north. We
encamped, at seventeen miles distance, on the north side in a bend of
the river. During our day's course it has been crooked; we observed a
number of places in it where the old channel is filled up, or gradually
becoming covered with willow and cottonwood; great numbers of herons are
observed to-day, and the mosquitoes annoy us very much.

August 12. A gentle breeze from the south, carried us along about ten
miles, when we stopped to take meridian altitude, and sent a man across
to our place of observation: yesterday he stepped nine hundred and
seventy-four yards, and the distance we had come round, was eighteen
miles and three quarters. The river is wider and shallower than usual.
Four miles beyond this bend a bluff begins, and continues several
miles; on the south it rises from the water at different heights, from
twenty to one hundred and fifty feet, and higher as it recedes on the
river: it consists of yellow and brown clay, with soft s