, and around it the marks of about eighty
leathern lodges. He also saw a number of turtle-doves, and some pigeons,
of which he shot one, differing in no respect from the wild pigeon of
the United States. . . ."

"The buffalo have not yet quite gone, for the hunters brought in three,
in very good order. It requires some diligence to supply us plentifully,
for as we reserve our parched meal for the Rocky Mountains, where we do
not expect to find much game, our principal article of food is meat, and
the consumption of the whole thirty-two persons belonging to the
party amounts to four deer, an elk and a deer, or one buffalo, every
twenty-four hours. The mosquitoes and gnats persecute us as violently as
below, so that we can get no sleep unless defended by biers (nets), with
which we are all provided. We here found several plants hitherto unknown
to us, of which we preserved specimens."

On the fourteenth of July, the boats were finally launched, and next day
the journal records this important event:

"We rose early, embarked all our baggage on board the canoes, which,
though eight in number, are heavily loaded, and at ten o'clock set out
on our journey. . . . At the distance of seven and a half miles we came
to the lower point of a woodland, at the entrance of a beautiful river,
which, in honor of the Secretary of the Navy, we called Smith's River.
This stream falls into a bend on the south side of the Missouri, and
is eighty yards wide. As far as we could discern its course, it wound
through a charming valley towards the southeast, in which many herds
of buffalo were feeding, till, at the distance of twenty-five miles, it
entered the Rocky Mountains and was lost from our view. . . .

"We find the prickly pear, one of the greatest beauties as well as
greatest inconveniences of the plains, now in full bloom. The sunflower,
too, a plant common on every part of the Missouri from its entrance to
this place, is here very abundant, and in bloom. The lamb's-quarter,
wild cucumber, sand-rush, and narrow dock, are also common."

The journal here records the fact that the great river had now become so
crooked that it was expedient to note only its general course, leaving
out all description of its turns and windings. The Missouri was now
flowing due north, leaving its bends out of account, and the explorers,
ascending the river, were therefore travelling south; and although the
journal sets forth "the north bank" and "the south