Friday, 10th.  We had not proceeded more than four and a quarter miles when the violence of the wind forced us to halt for the day under some timber in a bend on the south side.  The wind continued high, the clouds thick and black, and we had a slight sprinkling of rain several times in the course of the day.  Shortly after our landing a dog came to us, and as this induced us to believe that we are near the hunting grounds of the Assiniboins, who are a vicious ill-disposed people, it was necessary to be on our guard:  we therefore inspected our arms which we found in good order, and sent several hunters to scour the country, but they returned in the evening having seen no tents, nor any recent tracks of Indians.  Biles and imposthumes are very common among the party, and sore eyes continue in a greater or less degree with all of us; for the imposthumes we use emollient poultices, and apply to the eyes a solution of two grains of white vitriol and one of sugar of lead with one ounce of water.

Saturday, 11th.  The wind blew very hard in the night, but having abated this morning we went on very well, till in the afternoon the wind arose and retarded our progress; the current too was strong, the river very crooked, and the banks as usual constantly precipitating themselves in large masses into the water.  The highlands are broken and approach nearer the river than they do below.  The soil however of both hills and low grounds appear as fertile as that further down the river:  it consists of a black looking loam with a small portion of sand, which cover the hills and bluffs to the depth of twenty or thirty feet, and when thrown in the water dissolves as readily as loaf-sugar, and effervesces like marle; there are also great appearances of quartz and mineral salts:  the first is most commonly seen in the faces of the bluffs, the second is found on the hills as well as the low grounds, and in the gullies which come down from the hills; it lies in a crust of two or three inches in depth, and may be swept up with a feather in large quantities.  There is no longer any appearance of coal burnt earth or pumicestone.  We saw and visited some high hills on the north side about three miles from the river, whose tops were covered with the pitch-pine:  this in the first pine we have seen on the Missouri, and it is like that of Virginia, except that the leaves are somewhat longer; among this pine is also a dwarf cedar, sometimes between three or four feet high, but generally spreading itself like a vine along the surface of the earth, which it covers very closely, putting out roots from the under side.  The fruit and smell resemble those of the common red cedar, but the leaf is finer and more delicate.  The tops of the hills where these plants grow have a soil quite different from that just described, the basis of it is usually yellow or white clay, and the general appearance light coloured, sandy, and barren, some scattering tufts of sedge being almost its only herbage.  About five in the afternoon