they felt themselves rewarded for all their labours and all their difficulties.  They left reluctantly this interesting spot, and pursuing the Indian road through the interval of the hills, arrived at the top of a ridge, from which they saw high mountains partially covered with snow still to the west of them.  The ridge on which they stood formed the dividing line between the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  They followed a descent much steeper than that on the eastern side, and at the distance of three quarters of a mile reached a handsome bold creek of cold clear water running to the westward.  They stopped to taste for the first time the waters of the Columbia; and after a few minutes followed the road across steep hills and low hollows, till they reached a spring on the side of a mountain:  here they found a sufficient quantity of dry willow brush for fuel, and therefore halted for the night; and having killed nothing in the course of the day supped on their last piece of pork, and trusted to fortune for some other food to mix with a little flour and parched meal, which was all that now remained of their provisions.  Before reaching the fountain of the Missouri they saw several large hawks nearly black, and some of the heath cocks:  these last have a long pointed tail, and are of a uniform dark brown colour, much larger than the common dunghill fowl, and similar in habits and the mode of flying to the grouse or prairie hen.  Drewyer also wounded at the distance of one hundred and thirty yards an animal which we had not yet seen, but which after falling recovered itself and escaped.  It seemed to be of the fox kind, rather larger than the small wolf of the plains, and with a skin in which black, reddish brown, and yellow, were curiously intermixed.  On the creek of the Columbia they found a species of currant which does not grow as high as that of the Missouri, though it is more branching, and its leaf, the under disk of which is covered with a hairy pubescence, is twice as large.  The fruit is of the ordinary size and shape of the currant, and supported in the usual manner, but is of a deep purple colour, acid, and of a very inferior flavour.

We proceeded on in the boats, but as the river was very shallow and rapid, the navigation is extremely difficult, and the men who are almost constantly in the water are getting feeble and sore, and so much wore down by fatigue that they are very anxious to commence travelling by land.  We went along the main channel which is on the right side, and after passing nine bends in that direction, three islands and a number of bayous, reached at the distance of five and a half miles the upper point of a large island.  At noon there was a storm of thunder which continued about half an hour; after which we proceeded, but as it was necessary to drag the canoes over the shoals and rapids, made but little progress.  On leaving the island we passed a number of short bends, several bayous, and one run of water on the right side, and having gone by four small and two large islands, encamped on a smooth plain to the left near a few cottonwood trees:  our journey by water was just twelve miles, and four in a direct line.  The hunters supplied us with three deer and a fawn.