Lewis: April 2, 1806

Wednesday, April 2nd, 1806. This morning we came to a resolution to remain at our present encampment, or somewhere in this neighborhood, until we had obtained as much dried meat as would be necessary for our voyage as far as the Chopunnish. We resolved to exchange our pirogues for canoes with the natives on our way to the great falls of the Columbia, or to purchase such canoes from them for elk skins and merchandise as would answer our purposes. These canoes we intend exchanging with the natives of the plains for horses as we proceed, until we obtain as many as will enable us to travel altogether by land. At some convenient point, perhaps at the entrance of the southeast branch of the Columbia, we propose sending a party of four or five men ahead to collect our horses, so that they may be in readiness for us by our arrival at the Chopunnish. We calculate that by thus acquiring a large stock of horses, we shall not only secure the means of transporting our baggage over the mountains, but that we will also have provided the means of subsistence; for we now view the horses as our only certain resource for food, nor do we look forward to it with any detestation or distress—so soon is the mind, which is occupied with any interesting object, reconciled to its situation.

The men who were sent in quest of the elk and deer that were killed yesterday returned at 8 A.M. this morning. We now informed the party of our intention of laying in a store of meat at this place, and immediately dispatched two parties consisting of nine men to the opposite side of the river. Five of those we sent below the Quicksand River and four above. We also sent out three others on this side, and those who remained in camp were employed in collecting wood, making a scaffold, and cutting up the meat in order to dry it.

About this time several canoes of the natives arrived at our camp, and among others one from below which had on board eight men of the Shah-ha-la nation. These men informed us that two young men whom they pointed out were Cash-hooks and resided at the falls of a large river which discharges itself into the Columbia on its south side some miles below us. We readily prevailed on them to give us a sketch of this river, which they drew on a mat with a coal. It appeared that this river, which they called Mult-no-mah, discharged itself behind the island which we called the Image Canoe Island, and as we had left this island to the south both in ascending and descending the river, we had never seen it. They informed us that it was a large river and ran a considerable distance to the south between the mountains.

Capt. Clark (Capt. Clark) determined to return and examine this river. Accordingly, he took a party of seven men and one of the pirogues and set out at half past 11 A.M. He hired one of the Cashhooks, for a burning glass, to pilot him to the entrance of the Multnomah River, and took him on board with him. In their manners, dress, language, and stature, these people are the same as the Quathlahpohtle nation and others residing in the neighborhood of Wappetoe Island. Near the entrance of the Multnomah River, a considerable nation resides on the lower side of that stream by the same name.

As many as ten canoes with natives arrived at our camp in the course of the day; most of them were families of men, women, and children descending the river. They all gave the same account of the scarcity of provisions above. I shot my air gun, with which they were much astonished. One family consisting of ten or twelve persons remained near us all night. They conducted themselves in a very orderly manner. The three hunters on this side of the river returned in the evening; they had killed two deer, though they were so poor and at such a distance from camp that they brought in their skins only. The night and morning being cloudy, I was again disappointed in making the observations I wished.

Fir is the common growth of the uplands, as cottonwood, ash, large-leafed ash, and sweet willow are that of the bottom lands. The huckleberry, shallon, and the several evergreen shrubs of that species which bear berries have ceased to appear, except that species which has the leaf with a prickly margin. Among the plants of this prairie in which we are encamped, I observe the passhequo, shannetahque, and compound fern, the roots of which the natives eat; also the water cress, strawberry, flowering pea (not yet in bloom), the cinquefoil, narrow dock, and sand rush, which are luxuriant and abundant in the river bottoms; and a species of the bear's claw, of which I preserved a specimen—it is in bloom. The large-leafed thorn has also disappeared. The red flowering currant is found here in considerable quantities on the uplands. The hunters inform me that there are extensive prairies on the highlands a few miles back from the river on this side. The land is very fertile.