At this village the river widens to nearly a mile in extent; the low
grounds become wider, and they as well as the mountains on each side are
covered with pine, spruce-pine, cottonwood, a species of ash, and some
alder. After being so long accustomed to the dreary nakedness of the
country above, the change is as grateful to the eye as it is useful in
supplying us with fuel. Four miles from the village is a point of
land on the right, where the hills become lower, but are still thickly
timbered. The river is now about two miles wide, the current smooth and
gentle, and the effect of the tide has been sensible since leaving the
rapid. Six miles lower is a rock rising from the middle of the river to
the height of one hundred feet, and about eighty yards at its base.
We continued six miles further, and halted for the night under a high
projecting rock on the left side of the river, opposite the point of a
large meadow.
"The mountains, which, from the great shoot to this place, are high,
rugged, and thickly covered with timber, chiefly of the pine species,
here leave the river on each side; the river becomes two and one-half
miles in width; the low grounds are extensive and well supplied with
wood. The Indians whom we left at the portage passed us on their way
down the river, and seven others, who were descending in a canoe for the
purpose of trading below, camped with us. We had made from the foot of
the great shoot twenty-nine miles to-day. The ebb tide rose at our camp
about nine inches; the flood must rise much higher.
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