mats, baskets and buffaloe-skin canoes remaining entire in the camp.  We proceeded under a gentle breeze from the southwest:  at ten o’clock we saw two Indians on the north side, who told us they were a part of the lodge of Tartongawaka, or Buffaloe Medicine, the Teton chief whom we had seen on the twenty-fifth, that they were on the way to the Ricaras, and begged us for something to eat, which we of course gave them.  At seven and a half miles is a willow island on the north, and another on the same side five miles beyond it, in the middle of the river between highlands on both sides.  At eighteen and a half miles is an island called Grouse island, on which are the walls of an old village; the island has no timber, but is covered with grass and wild rye, and owes its name to the number of grouse that frequent it.  We then went on till our journey for the day was twenty-two miles:  the country presented the same appearance as usual.  In the low timbered ground near the mouth of the Sawawkawna, we saw the tracks of large white bear, and on Grouse island killed a female blaireau, and a deer of the black-tailed species, the largest we have ever seen.

Monday, October 8.  We proceeded early with a cool northwest wind, and at two and a half miles above Grouse island, reached the mouth of a creek on the south, then a small willow island, which divides the current equally; and at four and a half miles came to a river on the southern side where we halted.  This river, which our meridian altitude fixes at 45 degrees 39’ 5” north latitude, is called by the Ricaras Wetawhoo; it rises in the Black mountains, and its bed which flows at the mouth over a low soft slate stone, is one hundred and twenty yards wide, but the water is now confined within twenty yards, and is not very rapid, discharging mud with a small proportion of sand:  here as in every bend of the river, we again observe the red berries resembling currants, which we mentioned before.  Two miles above the Wetawhoo, and on the same side, is a small river called Maropa by the Indians; it is twenty yards in width, but so dammed up by mud that the stream creeps through a channel of not more than an inch in diameter, and discharges no sand.  One mile further we reached an island close to the southern shore, from which it is separated by a deep channel of sixty yards.  About half way a number of Ricara Indians came out to see us.  We stopped and took a Frenchman on board, who accompanied us past the island to our camp on the north side of the river, which is at the distance of twelve miles from that of yesterday.  Captain Lewis then returned with four of the party to see the village; it is situated in the centre of the island, near the southern shore, under the foot of some high, bald, uneven hills, and contains about sixty lodges.  The island itself is three miles long, and covered with fields in which the Indians raise corn, beans, and potatoes.  Several Frenchmen living among these Indians as interpreters, or traders, came back with captain Lewis, and particularly a Mr. Gravelines, a man who has acquired the language.  On setting out we had a low prairie covered with timber on the north, and on the south highlands, but at the mouth of the Wetawhoo the southern country changes, and a low timbered plain extends along the south, while the north has a ridge of barren hills during the rest of the day’s course.