and a species of garlic growing on the highlands, which is now green and in bloom:  it has a flat leaf, and is strong, tough, and disagreeable.  There was also much of the wild flax, of which we now obtained some ripe seed, as well as some bullrush and cattail flag.  Among the animals we met with a black snake about two feet long, with the belly as dark as any other part of the body, which was perfectly black, and which had one hundred and twenty-eight scuta on the belly and sixty-three on the tail:  we also saw antelopes, crane, geese, ducks, beaver, and otter; and took up four deer which had been left on the water side by captain Clarke.  He had pursued all day an Indian road on the right side of the river, and encamped late in the evening at the distance of twenty-five miles from our camp of last night.  In the course of his walk he met besides deer a number of antelopes and a herd of elk, but all the tracks of Indians, though numerous, were of an old date.

Wednesday, 24.  We proceeded for four and a quarter miles along several islands to a small run, just above which the low bluffs touch the river.  Within three and a half miles further we came to a small island on the north, and a remarkable bluff composed of earth of a crimson colour, intermixed with stratas of slate, either black or of a red resembling brick.  The following six and three quarter miles brought us to an assemblage of islands, having passed four at different distances; and within the next five miles we met the same number of islands, and encamped on the north after making nineteen and a half miles.  The current of the river was strong and obstructed, as indeed it has been for some days by small rapids or ripples which descend from one to three feet in the course of one hundred and fifty yards, but they are rarely incommoded by any fixed rocks, and therefore, though the water is rapid, the passage is not attended with danger.  The valley through which the river passes is like that of yesterday; the nearest hills generally concealing the most distant from us; but when we obtain a view of them they present themselves in amphitheatre, rising above each other as they recede from the river till the most remote are covered with snow.  We saw many otter and beaver to-day:  the latter seem to contribute very much to the number of islands and the widening of the river.  They begin by damming up the small channels of about twenty yards between the islands; this obliges the river to seek another outlet, and as soon as this is effected the channel stopped by the beaver becomes filled with mud and sand.  The industrious animal is then driven to another channel which soon shares the same fate, till the river spreads on all sides, and cuts the projecting points of the land into islands.  We killed a deer and saw great numbers of antelopes, cranes, some geese, and a few redheaded ducks.  The small birds of the plains and the curlew are still abundant:  we saw but could not come within gunshot