Clark: March 18, 1806

Tuesday, March 17th, 1806. Drewyer was taken last night with a violent pain in his side. I bled him. Several of the men are complaining of being unwell. It is truly unfortunate that they should be sick at the moment of our departure. I directed Sergt. Pryor (Sergeant Pryor) to prepare the two Indian canoes which we had purchased for his mess. They needed some knees to strengthen them, and several cracks needed to be caulked and payed. He completed them except for the paying. The frequent showers of rain prevented the canoes from drying sufficiently to pay them even with the assistance of fire.

Commorwool and two Cathlahmahs visited us today; we let them remain all night. This morning we gave Delashelwilt a certificate of his good deportment, etc., and also a list of our names, after which we sent him off to his village with his female band. These lists of our names we have given to several of the natives, and we also pasted up a copy in our room. The object of these lists we stated in the preamble of the same as follows, viz: "The object of this list is, that through the medium of some civilized person who may see the same, it may be made known to the informed world, that the party consisting of the persons whose names are hereunto annexed, and who were sent out by the Government of the United States in May 1804, to explore the interior of the continent of North America, did penetrate the same by way of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, to the discharge of the latter into the Pacific Ocean, where they arrived on the 14th of November 1805, and from whence they departed the ____ day of March 1806 on their return to the United States by the same route they had come out."

On the back of the lists we added a sketch of the continent of the upper branches of the Missouri with those of the Columbia, particularly of its upper N. E. branch, or Lewis's River, on which we also delineated the track we had come and that we meant to pursue on our return, where the same happened to vary. There seem to be so many chances against our government ever obtaining a regular report through the medium of the Indians and the traders of this coast that we decline making any. Our party is too small to think of leaving any of them to return to the United States by sea, particularly as we shall necessarily be divided into two or three parties on our return in order to accomplish the object we have in view; and at any rate we shall reach the U. States in all human probability much earlier than a man could who must, in the event of his being left here, depend for his passage to the U. States on the traders of the coast, who may not return immediately to the U. States, or, if they should, might probably spend the next summer in trading with the natives before they would set out on their return. This evening Drewyer went in quest of his traps, and took an otter. Joseph Field killed an elk. The Indians repeated to us eighteen distinct nations residing on the S. S. E. coast who speak the Kil a mox language or understand it, and beyond those, six other nations which speak a different language that they did not comprehend.

The 2nd species of seawrack which I saw on the coast to the S. S. E. near the Kil a mox nation: it resembles a large pumpkin; it is solid, and its specific gravity is rather greater than that of water, though it is sometimes thrown out by the waves. It is of a pale yellowish-brown color. The rind is smooth and its consistency is harder than that of the pumpkin, though easily cut with a knife. There are some fibers of a lighter color and much harder than any other part, which pass longitudinally through the pulp or fleshy substance which forms the interior of this marine production.