then rise about twenty feet, and terminate abruptly
within eighty or ninety yards of the southern side. Between them and the
perpendicular cliff on the south, the whole body of water runs with
great swiftness. A few small cedars grow near this ridge of rocks which
serves as a barrier to defend a small plain of about three acres shaded
with cottonwood, at the lower extremity of which is a grove of the same
tree, where are several Indian cabins of sticks; below the point of them
the river is divided by a large rock, several feet above the surface of
the water, and extending down the stream for twenty yards. At the
distance of three hundred yards from the same ridge is a second abutment
of solid perpendicular rock about sixty feet high, projecting at right
angles from the small plain on the north for one hundred and thirty-four
yards into the river. After leaving this, the Missouri again spreads
itself to its usual distance of three hundred yards, though with more
than its ordinary rapidity.

The hunters who had been sent out now returned loaded with buffaloe
meat, and captain Lewis encamped for the night under a tree near the
falls. The men were again despatched to hunt for food against the
arrival of the party, and captain Lewis walked down the river to
discover if possible some place where the canoes might be safely drawn
on shore, in order to be transported beyond the falls. He returned
however without discovering any such spot, the river for three miles
below being one continued succession of rapids and cascades, overhung
with perpendicular bluffs from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet
high; in short, it seems to have worn itself a channel through the solid
rock. In the afternoon they caught in the falls some of both kinds of
the white fish, and half a dozen trout from sixteen to twenty-three
inches long, precisely resembling in form and the position of its fins
the mountain or speckled trout of the United States, except that the
specks of the former are of a deep black, while those of the latter are
of a red or gold colour: they have long sharp teeth on the palate and
tongue, and generally a small speck of red on each side behind the front
ventral fins; the flesh is of a pale yellowish red, or when in good
order of a rose-coloured red.

Friday 14. This morning one of the men was sent to captain Clarke with
an account of the discovery of the falls, and after employing the rest
in preserving the meat which had