Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/173

 *vanced, I was obliged to look out for a place to sleep, and after some time, selected nearly as good a bed as the one I had the first night. My exertions in pulling the long coarse grass nearly rendered my hands useless by severely cutting all the joints of the fingers.

I rose before the sun on the morning of the 19th, and pursued an easterly course all the day. I at first felt very hungry, but after walking a few miles, and taking a drink of water, I got a little refreshed. The general appearance of the country was still flat, with burned grass, and sandy soil, which blistered my feet. The scorching influence of the sun obliged me to stop for some hours in the day; during which I made several ineffectual attempts to construct a covering for my head. At times I thought my brain was on fire from the dreadful effects of the heat. I got no fruit those two days, and towards evening felt very weak from the want of nourishment, having been forty-eight hours without food; and to make my situation more annoying, I slept that evening on the banks of a pretty lake, the inhabitants of which would have done honour to a royal table. With what an evil eye and a murderous heart did I regard the stately goose and the plump waddling duck as they sported on the water, unconscious of