ed to the great rapidity
of the current, makes the navigation very difficult, even for small
boats. Like the Platte its waters are of a light colour; like that river
too it throws out into the Missouri, great quantities of sand, coarser
even than that of the Platte, which form sandbars and shoals near its
mouth.

We encamped just above it, on the south, having made only eight miles,
as the wind shifted to the south, and blew so hard that in the course of
the day we broke our mast: we saw some deer, a number of geese, and shot
a turkey and a duck: the place in which we halted is a fine low-ground,
with much timber, such as red cedar, honeylocust, oak, arrowwood, elm
and coffeenut.

September 5, Wednesday. The wind was again high from the south. At five
miles, we came to a large island, called Pawnee island, in the middle of
the river; and stopped to breakfast at a small creek on the north, which
has the name of Goat creek, at eight and a half miles. Near the mouth of
this creek the beaver had made a dam across so as to form a large pond,
in which they built their houses. Above this island the river Poncara
falls into the Missouri from the south, and is thirty yards wide at the
entrance. Two men whom we despatched to the village of the same name,
returned with information that they had found it on the lower side of
the creek; but as this is the hunting season, the town was so completely
deserted that they had killed a buffaloe in the village itself. This
tribe of Poncaras, who are said to have once numbered four hundred
men, are now reduced to about fifty, and have associated for mutual
protection with the Mahas, who are about two hundred in number. These
two nations are allied by a similarity of misfortune; they were once
both numerous, both resided in villages, and cultivated Indian corn;
their common enemies, the Sioux and small-pox, drove them from their
towns, which they visit only occasionally for the purposes of trade;
and they now wander over the plains on the sources of the Wolf and
Quieurre rivers. Between the Pawnee island and Goat creek on the north,
is a cliff of blue earth, under which are several mineral springs,
impregnated with salts: near this we observed a number of goats, from
which the creek derives its name. At three and a half miles from the
creek, we came to a large island on the south, along which we passed to
the head of it, and encamped about four o'clock. Here we replaced the
mast we had lost