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Show i52 Lewis ctnd Clm•ke's EXJ.Jedition the foot of the hills to the right. At this place they halted for the night on the right side of the river, and laaviog lighted a fire of dry willow brush, the only fuel which the country affords, supped on a deer. They hml tt·avelletl today thirty miles by estimate: that is ten to the Rattlesnake cliff, fifteen to the forks of Jefferson river, and five to their encampment. In this cove some parts of the low grountls are tolerably fertile, but much the gt·eater proportion is covered with prickly pear, sedge, twisted grass, the pulpy-leafed thorn, southern -wood, and wild sa~e, and like the uplands haye a vot•y inferior soil. These last have little more than the prickly pear and the twisted or bearded grass, nor are there in the whole cove more than three or four cottonwood trees, and those are small. At the apparent extremity of the bottom above, and about ten miles to the westward, are two perpendicular cliffs rising to a considerable height on each side of the river, and at this distance seem like a gate. In the meantime we proceeded at sunrise. a.ml found the river not so rapid as yesterday, though more nart·ow and still very crooked, and so shallow that we were obliged to drag the canoes over many ripples in the course of the day. At six and a half' miles we had passed eight bends on the north, and two small bayous on the left, and came to what the Indians call the Beaver's-head, a steep rocky cliff about one hundred and fifty feet l1igh, near the right side of the t·iver. Opposite to this at three hundred yat·ds from the water is a low cliff about fifty feet in height, which forms the extr-emity of a spur of the mountain about four miles distant on the h:ft. At four o'clock we were ovet·takcn uy a heavy shower or rajn, attended with thunder, lightning and J~ail. The party were defended from the haiJ by covering themselves with willow bushes, but they got completely wet, and in this situation, as soon as the t•ain ceased, continued till we encamped. 'I'his we did at a low bluff on the left, after passing in the course of six and a half miles, feur islands aad eighteen b&nds oa the right, and a Up the .Missouri. 353 low bluff and several bayous on the same side. We bad new come thirteen miles, yet were only fout• on our route towards the mountai ns. '"£he game scf"ms to be declining. for our buntet·s procm·ed only a single deer, though we founcl anothct· for us that had been killed three days before by one of the hunters during an excursion, antl left fgr liS on the river. VOL. I. zz |