expected, and considerable uneasiness was felt in camp on
that account. 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 break-
fast 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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