in circumference, and divided into two parts by rocks which approach each other very closely:  its width is various:  it contains many islands, and is known by the name of the Lac d’Esprit:  it is near the Dogplains, and within four days march of the Mahas.  The country watered by it, is open and undulating, and may be visited in boats up the river for some distance.  The Desmoines, he adds, is about eighty yards wide where the Little Sioux river approaches it:  it is shoaly, and one of its principal branches is called Cat river.  Two miles beyond this river is a long island which we called Pelican island, from the numbers of that animal which were feeding on it:  one of these being killed, we poured into his bag five gallons of water.  An elk, too, was shot, and we had again to remark that snakes are rare in this part of the Missouri.  A meridian altitude near the Little Sioux river made the latitude 41 degrees 42’ 34”.  We encamped on the north, having come sixteen miles.

August 9.  A thick fog detained us until past seven o’clock, after which we proceeded with a gentle breeze from the southeast.  After passing two sandbars we reached, at seven and a half miles, a point of highland on the left, near which the river has forced itself a channel across a peninsula, leaving on the right a circuit of twelve or eighteen miles, which is now recognised by the ponds and islands it contains.  At seventeen and a half miles, we reached a point on the north, where we encamped.  The hills are at a great distance from the river for the last several days; the land, on both sides low, and covered with cottonwood and abundance of grape vines.  An elk was seen to-day, a turkey also shot, and near our camp is a beaver den:  the musquitoes have been more troublesome than ever for the two last days.

August 10.  At two and a half miles, we came to a place, called Coupee a Jacques, where the river has found a new bed, and abridged a circuit of several miles:  at twelve and a half miles, a cliff of yellow stone on the left.  This is the first highland near the river above the Council-bluff.  After passing a number of sandbars we reached a willow island at the distance of twenty-two and a half miles, which we were enabled to do with our oars and a wind from the S.W. and encamped on the north side.

August 11.  After a violent wind from the N.W. attended with rain, we sailed along the right of the island.  At nearly five miles, we halted on the south side for the purpose of examining a spot where one of the great chiefs of the Mahas named Blackbird, who died about four years ago of the smallpox, was buried.  A hill of yellow soft sandstone rises from the river in bluffs of various heights, till it ends in a knoll about three hundred feet above the water; on the top of this a mound, of twelve feet diameter at the base and six feet high, is raised over the body of the deceased king; a pole of about eight feet high is fixed in the centre; on which we placed