JGURN4L, 
m 
on the other side, but we were unable to distinguish them. At 
this place I measured a cotton-wood tree, which was thirty-six 
feet in circumference; they grow larger on the lower parts 
of this river, than perhaps any where else in America. The 
bluffs, in the course of this day appeared higher? but not so ab¬ 
rupt or rocky. 
Saturday 6 th. Having passed a small willow island, w e got 
beyond the hills on the S. W. side. At 11 o’clock, the wind 
became so high, that we were compelled to stop, as it blew di¬ 
rectly down the river. This is near Boon’s settlement-—About 
sixty miles from S.t. Charles* A number of plantations at the 
edge of the bottom. The wind having abated in the evening* 
we proceeded a fevy miles further, and encamped- 
Sunday 7 th. Water rising. Crossed to the S W. side? 
and encountered a very swift current, at the head of the willow 
island. The difficulty of this navigation is not easily described. 
Made Point Labadie, so called from a French trader, who for¬ 
merly wintered here. Forty years ago this was thought a dis¬ 
tant point on the Missouri, at present there are tolerable plan¬ 
tations every where through the bottom. The carcases of se¬ 
veral drowned buffaloes passed by ps; it is said that an unusual 
number of them has been drowned this year—Some have been 
seen floating on the river at St. Louis. A gentleman lately de¬ 
scended, declares that he counted forty on the head of an island. 
Immediately below Point Labadie, the river contracts its breadth? 
and is confined to a channel of three or four hundred yards wide. 
Passed between an island and the main shore; a very narrow 
channel, but the current and distance less. A channel of this 
sort is often taken in preference, and it is one of the means of 
facilitating the pending of this uncommonly rapid river: bu£ 
there is sometimes danger of the upper end being closed with 
logs and billets of w°°d matted together, as it turned out in the 
pre sent instance; fortunately after the labor of an hour we were 
able to remove the obstacles, else we should have been compell¬ 
ed to return. Opposite the head of the island there is a tolera- 
Table log house, and some land cleared ; the tenant, a new comer? 
with a wife and six children, had nothing to give or sell. Here 
the banks fail in very much: the river more than a mile wi<Je* 
