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"One Of The Hunters Shot At An Otter Last Evening; A Buffalo Was Killed,
And An Elk, Both So Poor As To Be Almost Unfit For Use; Two White [Grizzly]
Bears Were Also Seen, And A Muskrat Swimming Across The River.
The river
continues wide and of about the same rapidity as the ordinary current
of the Ohio.
The low grounds are wide, the moister parts containing timber;
the upland is extremely broken, without wood, and in some places seems
as if it had slipped down in masses of several acres in surface.
The mineral appearance of salts, coal, and sulphur, with the burnt hill
and pumice-stone, continue, and a bituminous water about the color of
strong lye, with the taste of Glauber's salts and a slight tincture of alum.
Many geese were feeding in the prairies, and a number of magpies,
which build their nests much like those of the blackbird, in trees,
and composed of small sticks, leaves, and grass, open at the top;
the egg is of a bluish-brown color, freckled with reddish-brown spots.
We also killed a large hooting-owl resembling that of the United States
except that it was more booted and clad with feathers. On the hills
are many aromatic herbs, resembling in taste, smell, and appearance
the sage, hyssop, wormwood, southernwood, juniper, and dwarf cedar; a plant
also about two or three feet high, similar to the camphor in smell and taste;
and another plant of the same size, with a long, narrow, smooth, soft leaf,
of an agreeable smell and flavor, which is a favorite food of the antelope,
whose necks are often perfumed by rubbing against it."
What the journalist intended to say here was that at least
one of the aromatic herbs resembled sage, hyssop, wormwood,
and southernwood, and that there were junipers and dwarf cedars.
The pungent-smelling herb was the wild sage, now celebrated
in stories of adventure as the sage-brush. It grows abundantly
in the alkali country, and is browsed upon by a species
of grouse known as the sage-hen. Junipers and dwarf cedars
also grow on the hills of the alkali and sage-brush country.
The sage belongs to the Artemisia family of plants.
Four days later, the journal had this interesting entry:
"The country to-day presented the usual variety of highlands
interspersed with rich plains. In one of these we observed
a species of pea bearing a yellow flower, which is now
in blossom, the leaf and stalk resembling the common pea.
It seldom rises higher than six inches, and the root is perennial.
On the rose-bushes we also saw a quantity of the hair of a buffalo,
which had become perfectly white by exposure and resembled the wool
of the sheep, except that it was much finer and more soft and silky.
A buffalo which we killed yesterday had shed his long hair,
and that which remained was about two inches long,
thick, fine, and would have furnished five pounds of wool,
of which we have no doubt an excellent cloth may be made.
Our game to-day was a beaver, a deer, an elk, and some geese. . . .
"On the hills we observed considerable quantities of dwarf juniper,
which seldom grows higher than three feet. We killed in the course
of the day an elk, three geese, and a beaver. The beaver on this part
of the Missouri are in greater quantities, larger and fatter, and their fur
is more abundant and of a darker color, than any we have hitherto seen.
Their favorite food seems to be the bark of the cottonwood and willow,
as we have seen no other species of tree that has been touched by them,
and these they gnaw to the ground through a diameter of twenty inches."
And on the twenty-first of April the journal says:
"Last night there was a hard white frost, and this morning
the weather was cold, but clear and pleasant; in the course
of the day, however, it became cloudy and the wind rose.
The country is of the same description as within the few last days.
We saw immense quantities of buffalo, elk, deer, antelopes, geese,
and some swans and ducks, out of which we procured three deer
and four buffalo calves, which last are equal in flavor
to the most delicious veal; also two beaver and an otter."
As the party advanced to the westward, following the crooked course
of the Missouri, they were very much afflicted with inflamed eyes,
occasioned by the fine, alkaline dust that blew so lightly
that it sometimes floated for miles, like clouds of smoke.
The dust even penetrated the works of one of their watches,
although it was protected by tight, double cases.
In these later days, even the double windows of the railway
trains do not keep out this penetrating dust, which makes one's
skin dry and rough.
On the twenty-fifth of April, the explorers believed,
by the signs which they observed, that they must be near
the great unknown river of which they had dimly heard as rising
in the rocky passes of the Great Divide and emptying into
the Missouri. Captain Lewis accordingly left the party, with four men,
and struck off across the country in search of the stream.
Under the next day's date the journal reports the return
of Captain Lewis and says: -
"On leaving us yesterday he pursued his route along the foot
of the hills, which be descended to the distance of eight miles;
from these the wide plains watered by the Missouri and the Yellowstone
spread themselves before the eye, occasionally varied with the wood
of the banks, enlivened by the irregular windings of the two rivers,
and animated by vast herds of buffalo, deer, elk, and antelope.
The confluence of the two rivers was concealed by the wood,
but the Yellowstone itself was only two miles distant, to the south.
He therefore descended the hills and camped on the bank of the river,
having killed, as he crossed the plain, four buffaloes; the deer alone
are shy and retire to the woods, but the elk, antelope, and buffalo
suffered him to approach them without alarm, and often followed him
quietly for some distance."
The famous water-course, first described by Lewis and Clark, was named
by them the Yellow Stone River.
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