h yellow cast and much more
transparent than that of the Missouri, which itself, though clearer than
below, still retains its whitish hue and a portion of its sediment.
Opposite to the point of junction the current of the Missouri is gentle,
and two hundred and twenty-two yards in width, the bed principally of
mud (the little sand remaining being wholly confined to the points) and
still too deep to use the setting pole. If this be, as we suppose, the
Muscleshell, our Indian information is, that it rises in the first chain
of the Rocky mountains not far from the sources of the Yellowstone,
whence in its course to this place it waters a high broken country, well
timbered particularly on its borders, and interspersed with handsome
fertile plains and meadows. We have reason, however, to believe, from
their giving a similar account of the timber where we now are, that the
timber of which they speak is similar to that which we have seen for a
few days past, which consists of nothing more than a few straggling
small pine and dwarf cedar, on the summits of the hills, nine-tenths of
the ground being totally destitute of wood, and covered with a short
grass, aromatic herbs, and an immense quantity of prickly pears: though
the party who explored it for eight miles represented low grounds on the
river as well supplied with cottonwood of a tolerable size, and of an
excellent soil. They also reported that the country is broken and
irregular like that near our camp; that about five miles up a handsome
river about fifty yards wide, which we named after Chaboneau's wife,
Sahcajahweah, or Birdwoman's river, discharges itself into the
Muscleshell on the north or upper side. Another party found at the foot
of the southern hills, about four miles from the Missouri, a fine bold
spring, which in this country is so rare that since we left the Mandans
we have found only one of a similar kind, and that was under the bluffs
on the south side of the Missouri, at some distance from it, and about
five miles below the Yellowstone: with this exception all the small
fountains of which we have met a number are impregnated with the salts
which are so abundant here, and with which the Missouri is itself most
probably tainted, though to us who have been so much accustomed to it,
the taste is not perceptible. Among the game to-day we observed two
large owls, with remarkably long feathers resembling ears on the sides
of the head, which we presume are the hooti