Tuesday, 12. About three o’clock a tremendous gale of wind arose, accompanied with lightning, thunder, and hail: at six it became light for a short time, but a violent rain soon began and lasted during the day. During this storm one of our boats, secured by being sunk with great quantities of stone, got loose, but drifting against a rock, was recovered without having received much injury. Our situation became now much more dangerous, for the waves were driven with fury against the rocks and trees, which till now had afforded us refuge: we therefore took advantage of a low tide, and moved about half a mile round a point to a small brook, which we had not observed till now on account of the thick bushes and driftwood which concealed its mouth. Here we were more safe; but still cold and wet, our clothes and bedding rotten as well as wet, our baggage at a distance, and the canoes, our only means of escape from this place, at the mercy of the waves: we were, however, fortunate enough to enjoy good health, and even had the luxury of getting some fresh salmon and three salmon trout in the brook. Three of the men attempted to go round a point in our small Indian canoe, but the high waves rendered her quite unmanageable; these boats requiring the seamanship of the natives themselves to make them live in so rough a sea.
Wednesday, 13. During the night we had short intervals of fair weather, but it began to rain in the morning, and continued through the day. In order to obtain a view of the country below, captain Clarke followed up the course of the brook, and with much fatigue, and after walking three miles, ascended the first spur of the mountains. The whole lower country was covered with almost impenetrable thickets of small pine, with which is mixed a species of plant resembling arrowwood; twelve or fifteen feet high, with a thorny stem, almost interwoven with each other, and scattered among the fern and fallen timber: there is also a red berry, somewhat like the solomon’s seal, which is called by the natives, solme, and used as an article of diet. This thick growth rendered travelling almost impossible, and it was rendered more fatiguing by the steepness of the mountain, which was so great as to oblige him to draw himself up by means of the bushes. The timber on the hills is chiefly of a large tall species of pine, many of them eight or ten feet in diameter at the stump, and rising sometimes more than one hundred feet in height. The hail which fell two nights since is still to be seen on the mountains: there was no game, and no traces of any, except some old signs of elk: the cloudy weather prevented his seeing to any distance, and he therefore returned to camp, and sent three men in the Indian canoe to try if they could double the point and find some safer harbour for our canoes. At every flood-tide the seas break in great swells against the rocks, and drifts the trees among our establishment, so as to render it very insecure. We were confined as usual to dried fish, which is our last resource.
Thursday, 14. It rained without intermission during last night and to-day; the wind too is very high, and one of our canoes much injured by being dashed against rocks. Five Indians from below came to us in a canoe, and three of them having landed, informed us that they had seen the men sent down yesterday. At this moment one of them arrived, and informed us that these Indians had stolen his gig and basket: we therefore ordered the two women who remained in the canoe, to restore them; but this they refused, till we threatened to shoot, when they gave back the articles, and we then ordered them to leave us. They were of the Wahkiacum nation. The man now informed us that they had gone round the point as far as the high sea would suffer them in the canoe, and then landed, and that in the night he had separated from his companions, who had gone further down: that at no great distance from where we are is a beautiful sand beach and a good harbour. Captain Lewis concluded to examine more minutely the lower part of the bay, and taking one of the large canoes was landed at the point, whence he proceeded by land with four men, and the canoe returned nearly filled with water.
Friday, 15. It continued raining all night, but in the morning the weather became calm and fair: we therefore began to prepare for setting out, but before we were ready a high wind sprang up from the southeast, and obliged us to remain. The sun shone until one o’clock, and we were thus enabled to dry our bedding and examine our baggage. The rain, which has continued for the last ten days without an interval of more than two hours, has completely wet all our merchandise, and spoiled some of our fish, destroyed the robes, and rotted nearly one half of our few remaining articles of clothing, particularly the leather dresses. About three o’clock the wind fell, and we instantly loaded the canoes, and left the miserable spot to which we have been confined the last six days. On turning the point we came to the sand beach, through which runs a small stream from the hills; at the mouth of which is an ancient village of thirty-six houses, which has at present no inhabitants except fleas. Here we met Shannon, who had been sent back to meet us by captain Lewis. The day Shannon left us in the canoe, he and Willard proceeded on till they met a party of twenty Indians, who never having heard of us, did not know where they came from: they however behaved with so much civility, and seemed so anxious that the men should go with them towards the sea, that their suspicions were excited, and they declined going on: the Indians, however, would not leave them, and the men being confirmed in their suspicions, and fearful if they went into the woods to sleep they would be cut to pieces in the night, thought it best to pass the night in the midst of the Indians: they therefore made a fire, and after talking with them to a late hour, laid down with their rifles under their heads. As they awoke this morning they found that the Indians had stolen and concealed their guns: having demanded them in vain, Shannon seized a club, and was about assaulting one of the Indians whom he suspected as a thief, when another Indian began to load a fowling piece with an intention of shooting him. He therefore stopped and explained by signs, that if they did not give up the guns, a large party would come down the river before the sun rose to such a height, and put every one of them to death. Fortunately, captain Lewis and his party appeared at this time, and the terrified Indians immediately brought the guns, and five of them came on with Shannon. To these men we declared, that if ever any of their nation stole any thing from us he should be instantly shot. They reside to the north of this place, and speak a language different from that of the people higher up the river. It was now apparent that the sea was at all times too rough for us to proceed further down the bay by water: we therefore landed, and having chosen the best spot we could select, made our camp of boards from the old village. We were now situated comfortably, and being visited by four Wahkiacums with wappatoo roots, were enabled to make an agreeable addition to our food.
Saturday 16. The morning was clear and beautiful. We therefore, put out all our baggage to dry, and sent several of the party to hunt. Our camp is in full view of the ocean, on the bay laid down by Vancouver, which we distinguish by the name of Haley’s bay, from a trader who visits the Indians here, and is a great favourite among them. The meridian altitude of this day gave 46° 19´ 11´´ ⁷/₁₀ as the latitude of our camp. The wind was strong from the southwest, and the waves very high, yet the Indians were passing up and down the bay in canoes, and several of them encamped near us. We smoked with them, but after our recent experience of their thievish disposition, treated them with caution. Though so much exposed to the bad weather, none of the party have suffered, except one, who has a violent cold, in consequence of sleeping for several nights in wet leather. The hunters brought in two deer, a crane, some geese and ducks, and several brant, three of which were white, except a black part of the wing, and much larger than the gray brant, which is itself a size beyond the duck.
Sunday 17. A fair cool morning and easterly wind. The tide rises at this place eight feet six inches in height, and rolls over the beach in great waves.
About one o’clock captain Lewis returned, after having coasted down Haley’s bay to cape Disappointment, and some distance to the north along the sea coast. He was followed by several Chinnooks, among whom were the principal chief and his family. They made us a present of a boiled root, very much like the common liquorice in taste and size, and called culwhamo: in return we gave double the value of their present, and now learnt the danger of accepting any thing from them, since no return, even if ten times the value of their gift, can satisfy them. We were chiefly occupied in hunting, and were able to procure three deer, four brant and two ducks, and also saw some signs of elk. Captain Clarke now prepared for an excursion down the bay, and accordingly started,
Monday 18, at daylight, accompanied by eleven men. He proceeded along the beach one mile to a point of rocks about forty feet high, where the hills retire, leaving a wide beach, and a number of ponds covered with water-fowl, between which and the mountain is a narrow bottom of alder and small balsam trees. Seven miles from the rocks is the entrance of a creek, or rather drain from the ponds and hills, where is a cabin of Chinnooks. The cabin contained some children, and four women, one of whom was in a most miserable state, covered with ulcers, proceeding as we imagine, from the venereal disease, with which several of the Chinnooks we have seen appear to be afflicted. We were taken across in a canoe by two squaws, to each of whom we gave a fish-hook, and then coasting along the bay, passed at two miles the low bluff of a small hill, below which are the ruins of some old huts, and close to it the remains of a whale. The country is low, open and marshy; interspersed with some high pine and a thick undergrowth. Five miles from the creek, we came to a stream forty yards wide at low water, which we called Chinnook river. The hills up this river and towards the bay are not high, but very thickly covered with large pine of several species: in many places pine trees, three or four feet in thickness, are seen growing on the bodies of large trees, which though fallen and covered with moss, were in part sound. Here we dined on some brant and plover, killed as we came along, and after crossing in a boat lying in the sand near some old houses, proceeded along a bluff of yellow clay and soft stone to a little bay or harbour, into which a drain from some ponds empties: at this harbour the land is low, but as we went on it rose to hills of eighty or ninety feet above the water. At the distance of one mile is a second bay, and a mile beyond it, a small rocky island in a deep bend, which seems to afford a very good harbour, and where the natives inform us European vessels anchor for the purpose of trading. We went on round another bay, in which is a second small island of rocks, and crossed a small stream, which rises in a pond near the sea coast, and after running through a low isthmus empties into the bay. This narrow low ground, about two or three hundred yards wide, separates from the main hills a kind of peninsula, the extremity of which is two miles from the anchoring place; and this spot, which was called cape Disappointment, is an elevated, circular knob, rising with a steep ascent one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty feet above the water, formed like the whole shore of the bay, as well as of the seacoast, and covered with thick timber on the inner side, but open and grassy in the exposure next the sea. From this cape a high point of land bears south 20° west, about twenty-five miles distant. In the range between these two eminences, is the opposite point of the bay, a very low ground, which has been variously called cape Rond by Lapeyrouse, and point Adams by Vancouver. The water for a great distance off the mouth of the river, appears very shallow, and within the mouth nearest to point Adams, is a large sandbar, almost covered at high tide. We could not ascertain the direction of the deepest channel, for the waves break with tremendous force the whole distance across the bay, but the Indians point nearer to the opposite side as the best passage. After remaining for some time on this elevation, we descended across the low isthmus, and reached the ocean at the foot of a high hill, about a mile in circumference, and projecting into the sea. We crossed this hill, which is open and has a growth of high coarse grass, and encamped on the north side of it, having made nineteen miles. Besides the pounded fish and brant, we had for supper a flounder, which we picked up on the beach.
Tuesday 19. In the night it began to rain, and continued till eleven o’clock. Two hunters were sent on to kill something for breakfast, and the rest of the party after drying their blankets soon followed. At three miles we overtook the hunters, and breakfasted on a small deer, which they had been fortunate enough to kill. This, like all those we have seen on this coast, are much darker than our common deer. Their bodies too, are deeper, their legs shorter, and their eyes larger. The branches of the horns are similar, but the upper part of the tail is black, from the root to the end, and they do not leap, but jump like a sheep frightened. We then continued over rugged hills and steep hollows, near the sea, on a course about north 20° west, in a direct line from the cape, till at the distance of five miles, we reached a point of high land, below which a sandy beach extends, in a direction north 10° west, to another high point about twenty miles distant. This eminence we distinguished by the name of point Lewis. It is there that the highlands, which at the commencement of the sandy beach, recede towards Chinnook river, again approach the ocean. The intermediate country is low, with many small ponds, crowded with birds, and watered by the Chinnook, on the borders of which resides the nation of the same name. We went four miles along the sandy beach to a small pine tree, on which captain Clarke marked his name, with the year and day, and then returned to the foot of the hills, passing on the shore a sturgeon ten feet long, and several joints of the back bone of a whale, both which seem to have been thrown ashore and foundered. After dining on the remains of the small deer, we crossed in a southeastern direction to the bay, where we arrived at the distance of two miles, then continued along the bay, crossed Chinnook river, and encamped on its upper side, in a sandy bottom.
Wednesday 20. It rained in the course of the night. A hunter despatched early to kill some food, returned with eight ducks, on which we breakfasted, and then followed the course of the bay to the creek or outlet of the ponds. It was now high tide, the stream three hundred yards wide, and no person in the cabin to take us across. We therefore made a small raft, on which one of the men passed and brought a canoe to carry us over. As we went along the beach we were overtaken by several Indians, who gave us dried sturgeon and wappatoo roots, and soon met several parties of Chinnooks returning from the camp. When we arrived there we found many Chinnooks, and two of them being chiefs, we went through the ceremony of giving to each a medal, and to the most distinguished a flag. Their names were Comcommoly and Chillahlawil. One of the Indians had a robe made of two sea-otter skins, the fur of which was the most beautiful we had ever seen; the owner resisted every temptation to part with it, but at length could not resist the offer of a belt of blue beads which Chaboneau’s wife wore round her waist. During our absence the camp had been visited by many Indians, and the men who had been employed in hunting killed several deer, and a variety of wild fowls.