ile and a half:
we called it Judith's river: it rises in the Rock mountains in about
the same place with the Muscleshell and near the Yellowstone river. Its
entrance is one hundred yards wide from one bank to the other, the water
occupying about seventy-five yards, and in greater quantity than that of
the Muscleshell river, and though more rapid equally navigable, there
being no stones or rocks in the bed, which is composed entirely of
gravel and mud with some sand: the water too is clearer than any which
we have yet seen; and the low grounds, as far as we could discern, wider
and more woody than those of the Missouri: along its banks we observed
some box-alder intermixed with the cottonwood and the willow; the
undergrowth consisting of rosebushes, honeysuckle, and a little red
willow. There was a great abundance of the argalea or bighorned animals
in the high country through which it passes, and a great number of the
beaver in its waters: just above the entrance of it we saw the fires of
one hundred and twenty-six lodges, which appeared to have been deserted
about twelve or fifteen days, and on the other side of the Missouri a
large encampment, apparently made by the same nation. On examining some
moccasins which we found there, our Indian woman said that they did not
belong to her own nation the Snake Indians, but she thought that they
indicated a tribe on this side of the Rocky mountain, and to the north
of the Missouri; indeed it is probable that these are the Minnetarees of
fort de Prairie. At the distance of six and a half miles the hills again
approach the brink of the river, and the stones and rocks washed down
from them form a very bad rapid, with rocks and ripples more numerous
and difficult than those we passed on the 27th and 28th; here the same
scene was renewed, and we had again to struggle and labour to preserve
our small craft from being lost. Near this spot are a few trees of the
ash, the first we have seen for a great distance, and from which we
named the place Ash Rapids. On these hills there is but little timber,
but the salts, coal, and other mineral appearances continue. On the
north we passed a precipice about one hundred and twenty feet high,
under which lay scattered the fragments of at least one hundred carcases
of buffaloes, although the water which had washed away the lower part of
the hill must have carried off many of the dead. These buffaloe had been
chased down the precipice in a way very c