Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 6).djvu/92

 We ascended along the sand bars with difficulty on account of the wind, which blew the sand in our {94} faces, and our men suffered much from fatigue. Hailed a trader descending in a large canoe, made of skins of the buffaloe, upwards of twenty feet in length, who wintered at the river a Jaque. He met Hunt eight leagues above that river, proceeding with a fair wind, and is by this time at the Poncas village. These skin canoes are formed by stretching the skins of the buffaloe over the red willow, of which a kind of frame is in the first instance prepared. They require to be frequently exposed to the sun, and dried, as they would otherwise become too heavy from the quantity of water absorbed.

The water has been rapidly rising for twenty-four hours. The sand bars are all covered and the banks in many places inundated.

Tuesday 21st. This morning fine, though somewhat cool. Wind increasing from the N. E. Current rapid, but for the eddies in the bends, it would be almost impossible to ascend. There are but few embarras, or collection of trees, &c. The sand bars are fringed with a thick growth of willows, immediately behind which there are young cotton-wood trees, forming a handsome natural avenue, twenty or thirty feet wide. The banks are {95} very low, and must be inundated every season. Passed in the evening, a rapid of frightful appearance, the water, in the middle of the river, foaming and rolling in waves, as if agitated by violent wind, while on either side it was calm. We were compelled to pass along the sand bar, and through the willows. It was with difficulty that we could obtain dry land this evening, the water, in most places, flows into the woods. In the night, the water had risen so much that the men were compelled to abandon their encampment, and sleep on board. Very little prairie in the course of the day, but the timber of a small size.