[Clark:]
Tuesday April 8th. 1806
This morning about day light I heard a considerable roreing
like wind at a distance and in the course of a short time wavs
rose very high which appeared to come across the river and in
the course of an hour became so high that we were obliged to
unload the canoes, at 7 oClock A.M. the winds swelded and
blew so hard and raised the waves so emensely high from the
N.E. and tossed our canoes against the shore in such a manner
as to render it necessary to haul them up on the bank. finding
from the appearance of the winds that it is probable that
we may be detained all day, we sent out Drewyer, Shannon,
Colter & Collins to hunt with derections to return if the wind
should lul, if not to continue the hunt all day except they
killed Elk or bear sooner &c. we had the dried meat which
was cured at our last encampment below exposed to the sun.
John Shields cut out my small rifle & brought hir to shoot
very well. the party ows much to the injinuity of this man,
by whome their guns are repared when they get out of order
which is very often. I observed an Indian woman who visited
us yesterday blind of an eye, and a man who was nearly blind
of both eyes. the loss of sight I have observed to be more
common among all the nations inhabiting this river than among
any people I ever observed. they have almost invariably sore
eyes at all stages of life. the loss of an eye is very common
among them; blindness in persons of middle age is by no
means uncommon, and it is almost invariably a concammitant
of old age. I know not to what cause to attribute this prevalent
deficientcy of the eye except it be their exposure to the
reflection of the sun on the water to which they are constantly
exposed in the occupation of fishing. about 1 P M Collins
Shannon and Colter returned. Collins saw 2 bear but could
not get a shot at them. neither Shannon nor Colter saw anything
worth shooting. Soon after Drewyer returned haveing
only a Summer Duck. the Elk is gone to the mountains
as the hunters Suppose. in the evening late an old man his
Son & Grand Son and their wives &
c. came down dureing the
time the waves raged with great fury. the wife of the grandson
is a woman of differant appearance from any we have seen
on this river, [s]he has a very round head and pierceing black
eyes. Soon after those people arived the old man was detected
in stealing a spoon and he was ordered away, at about
200 yards below our camp they built themselves a fire and did
not return to our fires after. The wind continued violently
hard all day, and threw our canoes with such force against the
shore that one of them split before we could get it out
