to the warriors. This pipe was made of a dense transparent green stone,
very highly polished; about two and an half inches long, and of an oval
figure, the bowl being in the same situation with the stem. A small
piece of burnt clay is placed in the bottom of the bowl to separate the
tobacco from the end of the stem, and is of an irregularly round figure,
not fitting the tube perfectly close, in order that the smoke may pass
with facility. The tobacco is of the same kind with that used by the
Minnetarees, Mandans and Ricaras of the Missouri. The Shoshonees do not
cultivate this plant, but obtain it from the Rocky mountain Indians, and
some of the bands of their own nation who live further south. The
ceremony of smoking being concluded, captain Lewis explained to the
chief the purposes of his visit, and as by this time all the women and
children of the camp had gathered around the lodge to indulge in a view
of the first white men they had ever seen, he distributed among them the
remainder of the small articles he had brought with him. It was now late
in the afternoon, and our party had tasted no food since the night
before. On apprising the chief of this circumstance, he said that he had
nothing but berries to eat, and presented some cakes made of
serviceberry and chokecherries which had been dried in the sun. On these
captain Lewis made a hearty meal, and then walked down towards the
river: he found it a rapid clear stream forty yards wide and three feet
deep; the banks were low and abrupt, like those of the upper part of the
Missouri, and the bed formed of loose stones and gravel. Its course, as
far as he could observe it, was a little to the north of west, and was
bounded on each side by a range of high mountains, of which those on the
east are the lowest and most distant from the river.

The chief informed him that this stream discharged itself at the
distance of half a day's march, into another of twice its size, coming
from the southwest; but added, on further inquiry, that there was
scarcely more timber below the junction of those rivers than in this
neighbourhood, and that the river was rocky, rapid, and so closely
confined between high mountains, that it was impossible to pass down
it, either by land or water to the great lake, where as he had
understood the white men lived. This information was far from being
satisfactory; for there was no timber here that would answer the purpose
of building canoes, indeed not m