Lewis: April 25, 1806

Friday April 25th 1806. This morning we collected our horses and set out
at 9 A.M. and proceeded on 11 ms. to the Village of the Pish-quit-pahs of
51 mat lodges where we arrived at 2 P.M. purchased five dogs and some wood
from them and took dinner. this village contains about 7 hundred souls.
most of those people were in the plains at a distance from the river as we
passed down last fall, they had now therefore the gratification of
beholding whitemen for the first time. while here they flocked arround us
in great numbers tho treated us with much rispect. we gave two medals of
the small size to their two principal Cheifs who were pointed out to us by
our Chopunnish fellow traveller and were acknowledged by the nation. we
exposed a few old clothes my dirk and Capt. C’s swoard to barter for
horses but were unsuccessfull these articles constitute at present our
principal stock in trade. the Pish-quit-pahs insisted much on our
remaining with them all night, but sudry reasons conspired to urge our
noncomplyance with their wishes. we passed one house or reather lodge of
the Metcowwees about a mile above our encampment of the ____th of October
last the Pish-quit-pahs, may be considered hunters as well as fishermen as
they spend the fall and winter months in that occupation. they are
generally pleasently featured of good statue and well proportioned. both
women and men ride extreemly well. their bridle is usually a hair rope
tyed with both ends to the under jaw of the horse, and their saddle
consists of a pad of dressed skin stuffed with goats hair with wooden
stirups. almost all the horses which I have seen in possession of the
Indians have soar backs. the Pishquitpah women for the most part dress
with short shirts which reach to their knees long legings and mockersons,
they also use large robes; some of them weare only the truss and robe they
brade their hair as before discribed but the heads of neither male nor
female of this tribe are so much flattened as the nations lower down on
this river. at 4 P.M. we set out accompanyed by eighteen or twenty of
their young men on horseback. we continued our rout about nine miles where
finding as many willows as would answer our purposes for fuel we encamped
for the evening. the country we passed through was much as that of
yesterday. the river hills are about 250 feet high and generally abrupt
and craggey in many places faced with a perpendicular and solid rock. this
rock is black and hard. leve plains extend themselves from the tops of the
river hills to a great distance on either side of the river. the soil is
not as fertile as about the falls, tho it produces a low grass on which
the horses feed very conveniently. it astonished me to seed the order of
their horses at this season of the year when I knew that they had wintered
on the dry grass of the plains and at the same time road with greater
severity than is common among ourselves. I did not see a single horse
which could be deemed poor and many of them were as fat as seals. their
horses are generally good. this evining after we had encamped, we traded
for two horses with nearly the same articles we had offered at the
village; these nags Capt. C. and myself intend riding ourselves; haveing
now a sufficiency to transport with ease all our baggage and the packs of
the men.we killed six ducks in the course of the day; one of them
was of a speceis which I had never before seen I therefore had the most
material parts of it reserved as a specimine, the leggs are yellow and
feet webbed as those of the duckandmallard. saw many common lizzards,
several rattlesnakes killed by the party, they are the same as those
common to the U States. the horned Lizzard is also common.had the
fiddle played at the request of the natives and some of the men danced. we
passed five lodges of the Walldh wolldhs at the distance of 4 miles above
the Pishquitpahs.