yards wide: on the same side, and at four and a half miles distance from
the Whitepaint creek, is the Rapid river, or, as it is called by the
French, la Riverequi Court; this river empties into the Missouri, in a
course S.W. by W. and is one hundred and fifty-two yards wide, and four
feet deep at the confluence. It rises in the Black mountains, and passes
through a hilly country, with a poor soil. Captain Clark ascended three
miles to a beautiful plain, on the upper side, where the Pawnees once
had a village: he found that the river widened above its mouth, and
much divided by sands and islands, which, joined to the great rapidity
of the current, makes the navigation very difficult, even for small
boats. Like the Platte its waters are of a light colour; like that river
too it throws out into the Missouri, great quantities of sand, coarser
even than that of the Platte, which form sandbars and shoals near its
mouth.

We encamped just above it, on the south, having made only eight miles,
as the wind shifted to the south, and blew so hard that in the course of
the day we broke our mast: we saw some deer, a number of geese, and shot
a turkey and a duck: the place in which we halted is a fine low-ground,
with much timber, such as red cedar, honeylocust, oak, arrowwood, elm
and coffeenut.

September 5, Wednesday. The wind was again high from the south. At five
miles, we came to a large island, called Pawnee island, in the middle of
the river; and stopped to breakfast at a small creek on the north, which
has the name of Goat creek, at eight and a half miles. Near the mouth of
this creek the beaver had made a dam across so as to form a large pond,
in which they built their houses. Above this island the river Poncara
falls into the Missouri from the south, and is thirty yards wide at the
entrance. Two men whom we despatched to the village of the same name,