The Indians of the Missouri, more especially those who do not cultivate maize, make great use of the seed of this plant for bread, or in thickening their soup.

They first parch and then pound it between two stones, until it is reduced to a fine meal.

Sometimes they add a portion of water, and drink it thus diluted; at other times they add a sufficient proportion of marrow-grease to reduce it to the consistency of common dough, and eat it in that manner.
This last composition we preferred to all the rest, and thought it at that time a very palatable dish." They also feasted on a great variety of wild berries, purple, yellow, and black currants, which were delicious and more pleasant to the palate than those grown in their Virginia home-gardens; also service-berries, popularly known to later emigrants as "sarvice-berries." These grow on small bushes, two or three feet high; and the fruit is purple-skinned, with a white pulp, resembling a ripe gooseberry.
The journal, next day, has the following entry:-- "This morning early, before our departure, we saw a large herd of the big-horned animals, which were bounding among the rocks on the opposite cliff with great agility.

These inaccessible spots secure them from all their enemies, and their only danger is in wandering among these precipices, where we would suppose it scarcely possible for any animal to stand; a single false step would precipitate them at least five hundred feet into the water.
"At one and one fourth miles we passed another single cliff on the left; at the same distance beyond which is the mouth of a large river emptying from the north.

It is a handsome, bold, and clear stream, eighty yards wide--that is, nearly as broad as the Missouri--with a rapid current, over a bed of small smooth stones of various figures.