Lewis: June 10, 1806

Tuesday June 10th 1806. This morning we arrose early and had our horses
collected except one of Cruzatt’s and one of Whitehouse’s, which were not
to be found; after a surch of some hours Cruzatt’s horse was obtained and
the indians promised to find the other and bring it to us at the quawmash
flatts where we purpose encamping a few days. at 11 A.M. we set out with
the party each man being well mounted and a light load on a second horse,
beside which we have several supenemary horses in case of accedent or the
want of provision, we therefore feel ourselves perfectly equiped for the
mountains. we ascended the river hills which are very high and about three
miles in extent our sourse being N. 22° E. thence N. 15 W. 2 m to
Collins’s creek. thence due North 5 m. to the Eastern border of the
quawmash flatts where we encamped near the place we first met with the
Chopunnish last fall. the pass of Collins’s Creek was deep and extreemly
difficult tho we passed without sustaining further injury than weting some
of our roots and bread. the country through which we passed is extreemly
fertile and generally free of stone, is well timbered with several speceis
of fir, long leafed pine and larch. the undergrowth is chooke cherry near
the water courses, black alder, a large speceis of redroot now in blume, a
growth which resembles the pappaw in it’s leaf and which bears a burry
with five valves of a deep perple colour, two speceis of shoemate
sevenbark, perple haw, service berry, goosburry, a wild rose honeysuckle
which bears a white berry, and a species of dwarf pine which grows about
ten or twelve feet high. bears a globular formed cone with small scales,
the leaves are about the length and much the appearance of the common
pitch pine having it’s leaves in fassicles of two; in other rispects they
would at a little distance be taken for the young plants of the long
leafed pine. there are two speceis of the wild rose both quinqui petallous
and of a damask red but the one is as large as the common red rose of our
gardens. I observed the apples of this speceis last fall to be more than
triple the size of those of the ordinary wild rose; the stem of this rose
is the same with the other tho the leaf is somewhat larger. after we
encamped this evening we sent out our hunters; Collins killed a doe on
which we suped much to our satisfaction. we had scarcely reached Collins’s
Creek before we were overtaken by a party of Indians who informed us that
they were going to the quawmash flatts to hunt; their object I beleive is
the expectation of bing fed by us in which how ever kind as they have been
we must disappoint them at this moment as it is necessary that we should
use all frugallaty as well as employ every exertion to provide meat for
our journey. they have encamped with us. we find a great number of
burrowing squirels about our camp of which we killed several; I eat of
them and found them quite as tender and well flavored as our grey squirel.
saw many sand hill crains and some ducks in the slashey glades about this
place.