But he came in safely. He brought good news;
they had discovered a river on the south side of the Columbia, not far
from their present encampment, where there were an abundance of elk and
a favorable place for a winter camp. Bad weather detained them until the
seventh of December, when a favorable change enabled them to proceed.
They made their way slowly and very cautiously down-stream, the tide
being against them. The narrative proceeds:--
"We at length turned a point, and found ourselves in a deep bay: here we
landed for breakfast, and were joined by the party sent out three days
ago to look for the six elk, killed by the Lewis party. They had lost
their way for a day and a half, and when they at last reached the place,
found the elk so much spoiled that they brought away nothing but the
skins of four of them. After breakfast we coasted round the bay, which
is about four miles across, and receives, besides several small creeks,
two rivers, called by the Indians, the one Kilhowanakel, the other
Netul. We named it Meriwether's Bay, from the Christian name of Captain
Lewis, who was, no doubt, the first white man who had surveyed it. The
wind was high from the northeast, and in the middle of the day it rained
for two hours, and then cleared off. On reaching the south side of the
bay we ascended the Netul three miles, to the first point of high land
on its western bank, and formed our camp in a thick grove of lofty
pines, about two hundred yards from the water, and thirty feet above the
level of the high tides.
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