September 4.  We set out early, with a very cold wind from S.S.E. and at one mile and a half, reached a small creek, called Whitelime creek, on the south side.  Just above this is a cliff, covered with cedar trees, and at three miles a creek, called Whitepaint creek, of about thirty yards wide:  on the same side, and at four and a half miles distance from the Whitepaint creek, is the Rapid river, or, as it is called by the French, la Riverequi Court; this river empties into the Missouri, in a course S.W. by W. and is one hundred and fifty-two yards wide, and four feet deep at the confluence.  It rises in the Black mountains, and passes through a hilly country, with a poor soil.  Captain Clark ascended three miles to a beautiful plain, on the upper side, where the Pawnees once had a village:  he found that the river widened above its mouth, and much divided by sands and islands, which, joined to the great rapidity of the current, makes the navigation very difficult, even for small boats.  Like the Platte its waters are of a light colour; like that river too it throws out into the Missouri, great quantities of sand, coarser even than that of the Platte, which form sandbars and shoals near its mouth.

We encamped just above it, on the south, having made only eight miles, as the wind shifted to the south, and blew so hard that in the course of the day we broke our mast:  we saw some deer, a number of geese, and shot a turkey and a duck:  the place in which we halted is a fine low-ground, with much timber, such as red cedar, honeylocust, oak, arrowwood, elm and coffeenut.

September 5, Wednesday.  The wind was again high from the south.  At five miles, we came to a large island, called Pawnee island, in the middle of the river; and stopped to breakfast at a small creek on the north, which has the name of Goat creek, at eight and a half miles.  Near the mouth of this creek the beaver had made a dam across so as to form a large pond, in which they built their houses.  Above this island the river Poncara falls into the Missouri from the south, and is thirty yards wide at the entrance.  Two men whom we despatched to the village of the same name, returned with information that they had found it on the lower side of the creek; but as this is the hunting season, the town was so completely deserted that they had killed a buffaloe in the village itself.  This tribe of Poncaras, who are said to have once numbered four hundred men, are now reduced to about fifty, and have associated for mutual protection with the Mahas, who are about two hundred in number.  These two nations are allied by a similarity of misfortune; they were once both numerous, both resided in villages, and cultivated Indian corn; their common enemies, the Sioux and small-pox, drove them from their towns, which they visit only occasionally for the purposes of trade; and they now wander over the plains on the sources of the Wolf and Quieurre rivers.  Between the Pawnee island and Goat creek on the north, is