Sunday July 7th. 1805.
The weather warm and cloudy therefore unfavourable for
my operations; I keep small fires under the boat; the blowing
flies are innumerable about it; the moisture retained by
the bark prevents it from drying as fast as it otherwise would.
we dispatched two other hunters to kill Elk or buffaloe for
their skins to cover our baggage. we have no tents; the men
are therefore obliged to have recourse to the sails for shelter
from the weather and we have not more skins than are sufficient
to cover our baggage when stoed away in bulk on land.
many of the men are engaged in dressing leather to cloath
themselves. their leather cloathes soon become rotton as they
are much exposed to the water and frequently wet. Capt.
Clarks black man York is very unwell today and he gave him
a doze of tartar emettic which operated very well and he was
much better in the evening. this is a discription of medecine
that I never have recourse to in my practice except in cases
of the intermittent fever. this evening the hunters returned
with the canoes and brought thre[e] buffaloe skins only and
two Antelope 4 deer and three wolf skins; they reported
that the buffaloe had gone further down the river. the two
hunters whom we sent out from hence returned also without
having killed anything except one Elk. I set one of the party
at work to make me some sacks of the wolf skins, to transport
my Instruments when occasion requirs their being carried any
distance by land. we had a light shower of rain about 4 P.M.
attended with some thunder and lightning. one beaver caught
this morning. the musquetoes are excessively troublesome to
us. I have prepared my composition which I should have
put on this evening but the rain prevented me.
