Under that date he adds:--"We remained during the day in a situation the most cheerless and uncomfortable. On this little neck of land we are exposed, with a miserable covering which does not deserve the name of a shelter, to the violence of the winds; all our bedding and stores, as well as our bodies, are completely wet; our clothes are rotting with constant exposure, and we have no food except the dried fish brought from the falls, to which we are again reduced. The hunters all returned hungry and drenched with rain, having seen neither deer nor elk, and the swan and brant were too shy to be approached.
At noon the wind shifted to the northwest, and blew with such tremendous fury that many trees were blown down near us.
This gale lasted with short intervals during the whole night."
Of course, in the midst of such violent storms, it was impossible to get game, and the men were obliged to resort once more to a diet of dried fish, This food caused much sickness in the camp, and it became imperatively necessary that efforts should again be made to find game.
On the second of December, to their great joy an elk was killed, and next day they had a feast. The journal says;
"The wind was from the east and the morning fair; but, as if one whole day of fine weather were not permitted, toward night it began to rain.
Even this transient glimpse of sunshine revived the spirits of the party, who were still more pleased when the elk killed yesterday was brought into camp. This was the first elk we had killed on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, and condemned as we have been to the dried fish, it formed a most nourishing food.
After eating the marrow of the shank-bones, the squaw chopped them fine, and by boiling extracted a pint of grease, superior to the tallow itself of the animal. A canoe of eight Indians, who were carrying down wappatoo-roots to trade with the Clatsops, stopped at our camp; we bought a few roots for small fish-hooks, and they then left us.
Accustomed as we were to the sight, we could not but view with admiration the wonderful dexterity with which they guide their canoes over the most boisterous seas; for though the waves were so high that before they had gone half a mile the canoe was several times out of sight, they proceeded with the greatest calmness and security. Two of the hunters who set out yesterday had lost their way, and did not return till this evening.
They had seen in their ramble great signs of elk and had killed six, which they had butchered and left at a great distance.
A party was sent in the morning."
On the third of December Captain Clark carved on the trunk of a great pine tree this inscription:--"WM. CLARK DECEMBER 3D 1805 BY LAND FROM THE U. STATES IN 1804 & 5."
A few days later, Captain Lewis took with him a small party and set out to find a suitable spot on which to build their winter camp.
He did not return as soon as he was 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 breakfast 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."