Monday 29.  We proceeded early with a moderate wind:  captain Lewis who was on shore with one hunter met about eight o’clock two white bears:  of the strength and ferocity of this animal, the Indians had given us dreadful accounts:  they never attack him but in parties of six or eight persons, and even then are often defeated with the loss of one or more of the party.  Having no weapons but bows and arrows, and the bad guns with which the traders supply them, they are obliged to approach very near to the bear; and as no wound except through the head or heart is mortal, they frequently fall a sacrifice if they miss their aim.  He rather attacks than avoids a man, and such is the terror which he has inspired, that the Indians who go in quest of him paint themselves and perform all the superstitious rites customary when they make war on a neighbouring nation.  Hitherto those we had seen did not appear desirous of encountering us, but although to a skilful rifleman the danger is very much diminished, yet the white bear is still a terrible animal:  on approaching these two, both captain Lewis and the hunter fired and each wounded a bear:  one of them made his escape; the other turned upon captain Lewis and pursued him seventy or eighty yards, but being badly wounded he could not run so fast as to prevent him from reloading his piece, which he again aimed at him, and a third shot from the hunter brought him to the ground:  he was a male not quite full grown, and weighed about three hundred pounds:  the legs are somewhat longer than those of the black bear, and the talons and tusks much larger and longer.  The testicles are also placed much farther forward and suspended in separate pouches from two to four inches asunder, while those of the black bear are situated back between the thighs and in a single pouch like those of the dog:  its colour is a yellowish brown, the eyes small, black, and piercing, the front of the fore legs near the feet is usually black, and the fur is finer, thicker, and deeper than that of the black bear:  add to which, it is a more furious animal, and very remarkable for the wounds which it will bear without dying.

We are surrounded with deer, elk, buffaloe, antelopes, and their companions the wolves, who have become more numerous and make great ravages among them:  the hills are here much more rough and high, and almost overhang the banks of the river.  There are greater appearances of coal than we have hitherto seen, the stratas of it being in some places six feet thick, and there are stratas of burnt earth, which are always on the same level with those of coal.  In the evening after coming twenty-five miles we encamped at the entrance of a river which empties itself into a bend on the north side of the Missouri:  this stream which we called Martha’s river, is about fifty yards wide, with water for fifteen yards, the banks are of earth, and steep, though not high, and the bed principally of mud.  Captain Clarke, who ascended