University of Virginia Library

Monday 5th.. August 1805.

a clear cool morning. we Set out at Sunrise 2 hunters
Sent on a head to kill Some meat. one of them joined us
with a deer he had killed before breakfast time. the wind cold
from the South. the Shores and hills rockey, & bottom of
the River covd. with Small Stones. our other hunter joined us

at noon, had killed nothing. the rapids gits worse that ever.
it is with difficulty we git over them, & verry fatigueing. at
1 oC. P. M. clouded up. wind high. proceeded on about
a mile further up came to a fork we took the right hand fork
which was amazeing rapid. Some of the rapids falls 3 or 4
feet or their abouts in the length of our canoes. we passed
through a channel where the water was rapid and ran through
the willows & young cotton wood the beaver had fell[ed]
Some of them across the channel and [as] it [was] crooked it
was with much difficulty we got thro. obledged to forse our
way through the bushes and hall by them. Some places out
in the water could Scarsely keep our feet for the rapidity of
the current. Saw Several beaver dams verry high. night
came on. Camped on S. Side at a low bottom, which has
lately been overflowed. we expect this little Stream is high
from the Snow melting on the mountains. it appears it has
lately been higher, but is now falling a little. was it low their
would not be water enofe in it for us to proceed any further
by water. our hunter killed a deer. Came 8 miles this day.
the party much fatigued and wish to leave the canoes & go
by land.