very early, breakfasting a little before noon, and continued our progress till dark, about 7 o'clock, when we camped for the night, and found our suppers of salmon and dried buffalo meat highly acceptable.
Saturday, the 22d.—Arrived this night at the Kettle Falls, where the whole stream is precipitated over a perpendicular ledge, twenty-four feet high, besides several smaller cascades, which shiver the water into the most picturesque snowy flakes and foam for the distance of one hundred and fifty yards, where a small oval rocky island, studded with a few shrubs and trees, separates the channel in two.
Here I spent between a fortnight and three weeks, making daily excursions, during which I obtained some interesting plants, and killed several birds that I had not before seen in the country. Among these was a pretty black species of Partridge, which at this season was not at all shy, and of which I secured three specimens; a small Pheasant, and a Curlew, apparently quite distant from the European species, being never seen near marshy places, but abundant in dry ground, where it lays its egg on the bare soil. The plants that pleased me best were Erythronium grandiflorum of Pursh (Bot. Reg. t. 1780), which is extremely beautiful, especially when seen growing, as is commonly the case, with the Dodecatheon mentioned before, and with a small species of Pulmonaria; also Claytonia lanceolata, of which the roots, though insipid, are eaten by the poor Indians, both raw and roasted; two species of Rosa, and a lovely evergreen shrub, probably a Clethra[1], which is abundant in the woods here, and I trust may yet be equally so in the shrubberies of Britain.
Tuesday, May 9th.—Having apparently exhausted all the objects of interest which the very early season of the
- ↑ No Rosa appears in any of Mr. D.'s collections.
