Lewis: July 23, 1805

Tuesday July 23rd 1805. Set out early as usual; Capt. Clark left us with
his little party of 4 men and continued his rout on the Stard. side of the
river. about 10 OCk. A M. we came up with Drewyer who had seperated from
us yesterday evening and lay out all night not being able to find where we
had encamped. he had killed 5 deer which we took on board and continued
our rout. the river is still divided by a great number of islands, it
channels sometimes seperating to the distance of 3 miles; the current very
rapid with a number of riffles; the bed gravel and smooth stones; the
banks low and of rich loam in the bottoms; some low bluffs of yellow and
red clay with a hard red slate stone intermixed. the bottoms are wide and
but scantily timbered; the underbrush very thick consisting of the narrow
& broad leafed willow rose and Currant bushes principally. high plains
succeeds the river bottoms and extend back on either side to the base of
the mountains which are from 8 to 12 miles assunder, high, rocky, some
small pine and Cedar on them and ly parallel with the river. passed a
large creek on Lard. side 20 yds. wide which after meandering through a
beautifull and extensive bottom for several miles nearly parallel with the
river discharges itself opposite to a large cluster of islands which from
their number I called the 10 islands and the creek Whitehous’s Creek,
after Josph. Whitehouse one of the party. saw a great abundance of the
common thistles; also a number of the wild onions of which we collected a
further supply. there is a species of garlic also which grows on the high
lands with a flat leaf now green and in bloe but is strong tough and
disagreeable. found some seed of the wild flax ripe which I preserved;
this plant grows in great abundance in these bottoms. I halted rearther
early for dinner today than usual in order to dry some articles which had
gotten wet in several of the canoes. I ordered the canoes to hoist their
small flags in order that should the indians see us they might discover
that we were not Indians, nor their enemies. we made great uce of our
seting poles and cords the uce of both which the river and banks favored.
most of our small sockets were lost, and the stones were so smooth that
the points of their poles sliped in such manner that it increased the
labour of navigating the canoes very considerably, I recollected a parsel
of giggs which I had brought on, and made the men each atatch one of these
to the lower ends of their poles with strong wire, which answered the
desired purpose. we saw Antelopes Crain gees ducks beaver and Otter. we
took up four deer which Capt. Clark & party had killed and left near
the river. he pursued his rout untill late in the evening and encamped on
the bank of the river 25 ms. above our encampment of the last evening; he
followed an old indian road which lyes along the river on the stard side
Capt. saw a number of Antelopes, and one herd of Elk. also much sign of
the indians but all of ancient date. I saw the bull rush and Cattail flag
today.

I saw a black snake today about two feet long the Belly of which was as
black as any other part or as jet itself. it had 128 scuta on the belley
63 on the tail.