north. At eight miles we came to a willow island on the north, opposite
a point of timber, where there are many large stones near the middle of
the river, which seem to have been washed from the hills and high plains
on both sides, or driven from a distance down the stream. At twelve
miles we halted for dinner at a village which we suppose to have
belonged to the Ricaras; it is situated in a low plain on the river, and
consists of about eighty lodges, of an octagon form, neatly covered with
earth, placed as close to each other as possible, and picketed round.
The skin canoes, mats, buckets, and articles of furniture found in the
lodges, induce us to suppose that it had been left in the spring. We
found three different sorts of squashes growing in the village; we also
killed an elk near it, and saw two wolves. On leaving the village the
river became shallow, and after searching a long time for the main
channel, which was concealed among sandbars, we at last dragged the boat
over one of them rather than go back three miles for the deepest
channel. At fourteen and a half miles we stopped for the night on a
sandbar, opposite a creek on the north, called Otter creek, twenty-two
yards in width, and containing more water than is common for creeks of
that size. The sides of the river during the day are variegated with
high bluffs and low timbered grounds on the banks: the river is very
much obstructed by sandbars. We saw geese, swan, brants and ducks of
different kinds on the sandbars, and on shore numbers of the prairie
hen; the magpie too is very common, but the gulls and plover, which we
saw in such numbers below, are now quite rare.

Sunday, October 7. There was frost again last evening, and this morning
was cloudy and attended with rain. At two miles we came to the mouth of
a river; called by the Ricaras, Sawawkawna, or Pork river; the party who
examined it for about three miles up, say that its current is gentle,
and that it does not seem to throw out much sand. Its sources are in the