Thursday, 10.  A fine morning.  We loaded the canoes and set off at seven o’clock.  At the distance of two and a half miles we had passed three islands, the last of which is opposite to a small stream on the right.  Within the following three and a half miles is another island and a creek on the left, with wide low grounds, containing willow and cottonwood trees, on which were three tents of Indians.  Two miles lower is the head of a large island, and six and a half miles further we halted at an encampment of eight lodges on the left, in order to view a rapid before us:  we had already passed eight, and some of them difficult; but this was worse than any of them, being a very hazardous ripple strewed with rocks:  we here purchased roots and dined with the Indians.  Among them was a man from the falls, who says that he saw white people at that place and is very desirous of going down with us; an offer which however we declined.  Just above this camp we had passed a tent, near which was an Indian bathing himself in a small pond or hole of water, warmed by throwing in hot stones.  After finishing our meal we descended the rapid with no injury, except to one of our boats which ran against a rock, but in the course of an hour was brought off with only a small split in her side.  This ripple, from its appearance and difficulty, we named the Rugged rapid.  We went on over five other rapids of a less dangerous kind, and at the distance of five miles reached a large fork of the river from the south; and after coming twenty miles, halted below the junction on the right side of the river:  our arrival soon attracted the attention of the Indians, who flocked in all directions to see us.  In the evening the Indian from the falls, whom we had seen at the Rugged rapid, joined us with his son in a small canoe, and insisted on accompanying us to the falls.  Being again reduced to fish and roots we made an experiment to vary our food by purchasing* a few dogs, and after having been accustomed to horse-flesh, felt no disrelish to this new dish.  The Chopunnish have great numbers of dogs which they employ for domestic purposes, but never eat; and our using the flesh of that animal soon brought us into ridicule as dog-eaters.

The country at the junction of the two rivers is an open plain on all sides, broken towards the left by a distant ridge of highland, thinly covered with timber:  this is the only body of timber which the country possesses; for at the forks there is not a tree to be seen, and during almost the whole descent of sixty miles down the Kooskooskee from its forks there are very few.  This southern branch is in fact the main stream of Lewis’s river on which we encamped when among the Shoshonees.  The Indians inform us that it is navigable for sixty miles; that not far from its mouth it receives a branch from the south; and a second and larger branch, two days’ march up, and nearly parallel to the first Chopunnish villages, we met near the mountains.  This branch is called