[Lewis:]
Friday April 25th. 1806.
This morning we collected our horses and set out at 9 A.M.
and proceeded on 11 ms. to the Village of the Pish-quit-pahs
[Pisquow] of 51 mat lodges where we arrived at 2 P.M. purchased
five dogs and some wood from them and took dinner.
this village contains about 7 hundred souls. most of those
people were in the plains at a distance from the river as we
passed down last fall, they had now therefore the gratification
of beholding whitemen for the first time. while here they
flocked arround us in great numbers tho' treated us with much
rispect. we gave two medals of the small size to their two
principal Cheifs who were pointed out to us by our Chopunnish
fellow traveller and were acknowledged by the nation. we
exposed a few old clothes my dirk and Capt. C's swoard to
barter for horses but were unsuccessfull these articles constitute
at present our principal stock in trade. the Pish-quit-pahs
insisted much on our remaining with them all night, but
su[n]dry reasons conspired to urge our noncomplyance with
their wishes. we passed one house or reather lodge of the
Metcowwees about a mile above our encampment of the [blank
space in MS.]
th of October last, the
Pish-quit-pahs, may be
considered hunters as well as fishermen as they spend the fall
and winter months in that occupation. they are generally
pleasently featured of good statu[r]e and well proportioned.
both women and men ride extreemly well. their bridle is
usually a hair rope tyed with both ends to the under jaw of
the horse, and their saddle consists of a pad of dressed skin
stuffed with goats hair with wooden stirups. almost all the
horses which I have seen in the possession of the Indians have
soar backs. the Pishquitpah women for the most part dress
with short shirts which reach to their knees long legings and
mockersons, they also use large robes; some of them weare
only the truss and robe they brade their hair as before discribed
but the heads of neither male nor female of this tribe
are so much flattened as the nations lower down on this river.
at 4 P.M. we set out accompanyed by eighteen or twenty of
their young men on horseback. we continued our rout about
nine miles where finding as many willows as would answer our
purposes for fuel we encamped for the evening. the country
we passed through was much as that of yesterday. the river
hills are about 250 feet high and generally abrupt and craggey
in many places faced with a perpendicular and solid rock.
this rock is black and hard. leve[l] plains extend themselves
from the tops of the river hills to a great distance on either
side of the river. the soil is not as fertile as about the falls,
tho' it produces a low grass on which the horses feed very
conveniently. it astonished me to see the order of their horses
at this season of the year when I knew that they had wintered
on the drygrass of the plains
[13]
and at the same time road with
greater severity than is common among ourselves. I did not
see a single horse which could be deemed poor and many of
them were as fat as seals. their horses are generally good.
this evining after we had encamped, we traded for two horses
with nearly the same articles we had offered at the village;
these nags Capt. C. and myself intend riding ourselves; haveing
now a sufficiency to transport with ease all our baggage
and the packs of the men. we killed six ducks in the course
of the day; one of them was of a speceis which I had never
before seen I therefore had the most material parts of it reserved
as a specimine, the leggs are yellow and feet webbed as those
of the duckandmallard.
[14]
saw many common lizzards, several
rattlesnakes killed by the party, they are the same common to
the U. States. the horned Lizzard is also common. had the
fiddle played at the request of the natives and some of the
men danced. we passed five lodges of the
Wallâh wollâhs at
the distance of 4 miles above the Pishquitpâhs.
