d of their bark about the same season, which our Indian woman say
her countrymen do in order to obtain the sap and the soft parts of the
wood and bark for food. About eleven o'clock he met a herd of elk and
killed two of them, but such was the want of wood in the neighbourhood
that he was unable to procure enough to make a fire, and he was
therefore obliged to substitute the dung of the buffaloe, with which he
cooked his breakfast. They then resumed their course along an old Indian
road. In the afternoon they reached a handsome valley watered by a large
creek, both of which extend a considerable distance into the mountain:
this they crossed, and during the evening travelled over a mountainous
country covered with sharp fragments of flint-rock: these bruised and
cut their feet very much, but were scarcely less troublesome than the
prickly pear of the open plains, which have now become so abundant that
it is impossible to avoid them, and the thorns are so strong that they
pierce a double soal of dressed deer skin: the best resource against
them is a soal of buffaloe hide in parchment. At night they reached the
river much fatigued, having passed two mountains in the course of the
day and having travelled thirty miles. Captain Clarke's first employment
on lighting a fire was to extract from his feet the briars, which he
found seventeen in number.

In the meantime we proceeded on very well, though the water appears to
increase in rapidity as we advance: the current has indeed been strong
during the day and obstructed by some rapids, which are not however much
broken by rocks, and are perfectly safe: the river is deep, and its
general width is from one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards wide.
For more than thirteen miles we went along the numerous bends of the
river and then reached two small islands; three and three quarter miles
beyond which is a small creek in a bend to the left, above a small
island on the right side of the river. We were regaled about ten o'clock
P.M. with a thunder storm of rain and hail which lasted for an hour, but
during the day in this confined valley, through which we are passing,
the heat is almost insupportable; yet whenever we obtain a glimpse of
the lofty tops of the mountains we are tantalized with a view of the
snow. These mountains have their sides and summits partially varied with
little copses of pine, cedar, and balsam fir. A mile and a half beyond
this creek the rocks approach the riv