was about ninety yards wide, the current rapid, and about waist deep:  the bottom formed of smooth pebble with a small mixture of coarse gravel.  He then continued along the left bank of the river till sunset and encamped, after travelling twenty-four miles.  He met no fresh tracks of Indians.  Throughout the valley are scattered the bones and excrement of the buffaloe* of an old date, but there seems no hope of meeting the animals themselves in the mountains:  he saw an abundance of deer and antelope, and many tracks of elk and bear.  Having killed two deer they feasted sumptuously, with a desert of currants of different colours; two species of red, others yellow, deep purple, and black:  to these were added black gooseberries and deep purple serviceberries, somewhat larger than ours, from which it differs also in colour, size, and the superior excellence of its flavour.  In the low grounds of the river were many beaver-dams formed of willow brush, mud, and gravel, so closely interwoven that they resist the water perfectly:  some of them were five feet high and overflowed several acres of land.

In the meantime we proceeded on slowly, the current being so strong as to require the utmost exertions of the men to make any advance even with the aid of the cord and pole, the wind being from the northwest.  The river is full of large and small islands, and the plain cut by great numbers of bayous or channels, in which are multitudes of beaver.  In the course of the day we passed some villages of barking squirrels:  we saw several rattlesnakes in the plain; young ducks, both of the duckon-mallard and red-headed fishing duck species; some geese; also the black woodpecker, and a large herd of elk.  The channel, current, banks, and general appearance of the river, are like that of yesterday.  At fourteen and three quarter miles we reached a rapid creek or bayou about thirty yards wide, to which we gave the name of Birth creek.  After making seventeen miles we halted in a smooth plain in a bend towards the left.

Saturday, 3.  Captain Lewis continued his course along the river through the valley, which continued much as it was yesterday, except that it now widens to nearly twelve miles; the plains too are more broken and have some scattered pine near the mountains, where they rise higher than hitherto.  In the level parts of the plains and the river bottoms there is no timber except small cottonwood near the margin, and an undergrowth of narrow-leafed willow, small honeysuckle, rosebushes, currants, serviceberry, and gooseberry, and a little of a small species of birch; it is a finely indented oval of a small size and a deep green colour; the stem is simple, ascending and branching, and seldom rises higher than ten or twelve feet.  The mountains continue high on each side of the valley, but their only covering is a small species of pitch-pine with a short leaf, growing on the lower and middle regions, while for some distance below the snowy tops there is neither timber nor herbage