Lewis: April 30, 1805

Meriwether Lewis · Yellowstone-Missouri confluence

That night's camp, per the NPS campsite reconstruction (Bergantino): left shore, 1½ mi SE of Brockton, MT

Tuesday April 30th 1805. Set out at sunrise. the wind blew hard all last
night, and continued to blow pretty hard all day, but not so much, as to
compell us to ly by. the country as usual is bare of timber; the river
bottoms are level and fertile and extensive, but possess but little timber
and that of an indifferent quality even of it’s kind; principally low
cottonwood, either too small for building, or for plank or broken and dead
at top and unsound in the center of the trunk. saw great quantities of
game as usual. Capt. Clark walked on shore the greater part of the day,
past some old Indian lodges built of drift wood; they appear to be of
antient date and not recently inhabited. I walked on shore this evening
and killed a buck Elk, in tolerable order; it appeared to me to be the
largest I had seen, and was therefore induced to measure it; found it five
feet three inches from the point of the hoof, to the top of the sholders;
the leg and hoof being placed as nearly as possible in the same position
they would have been had the anamal been standing.