returned with information that they had found it on the lower side of
the creek; but as this is the hunting season, the town was so completely
deserted that they had killed a buffaloe in the village itself. This
tribe of Poncaras, who are said to have once numbered four hundred men,
are now reduced to about fifty, and have associated for mutual
protection with the Mahas, who are about two hundred in number. These
two nations are allied by a similarity of misfortune; they were once
both numerous, both resided in villages, and cultivated Indian corn;
their common enemies, the Sioux and small-pox, drove them from their
towns, which they visit only occasionally for the purposes of trade;
and they now wander over the plains on the sources of the Wolf and
Quieurre rivers. Between the Pawnee island and Goat creek on the north,
is a cliff of blue earth, under which are several mineral springs,
impregnated with salts: near this we observed a number of goats, from
which the creek derives its name. At three and a half miles from the
creek, we came to a large island on the south, along which we passed to
the head of it, and encamped about four o'clock. Here we replaced the
mast we had lost, with a new one of cedar: some bucks and an elk were
procured to-day, and a black tailed deer was seen near the Poncara's
village.

Thursday, September 6. There was a storm this morning from the N.W. and
though it moderated, the wind was still high, and the weather very cold;
the number of sandbars too, added to the rapidity of the current,
obliged us to have recourse to the towline: with all our exertions we
did not make more than eight and a half miles, and encamped on the
north, after passing high cliffs of soft, blue, and red coloured stone,
on the southern shore. We saw some goats, and great numbers of buffaloe,
in addition to which the hunters furnished us with elk, deer, turkies,
geese, and one beaver: a large catfish too was caught in the evening.